Godless
by insertbestname
Summary: Raised in an isolated shrine by the wolf-kami and priests, Mira is tasked to revive the kamigami in a land bloodied by the Third Shinobi World War. After a tragic mistake, Villages soon target her - including the Leaf's Team Minato. Caught between the world of kamigami and the world of man, Mira must forge a path which could destroy either one. OFC-focus, pre-Gaiden, RationalGenAU
1. Chapter 1

We were young when we met. Well, _I_ was young when we met: death had changed them, made them grow up too fast. _Him_, especially. Compared to them, I was entirely too naïve, entirely too trusting that everything would be simple, easy, happy. I knew nothing of the world then – just that shrine few recall only in legend.

I remember that place now. It was in the range of jagged mountain's teeth, a fading sore in a valley that no map marked. The primal forest smothered the buildings, ignorant to how it suffocated the structures with a pillow of jade. All around this outpost of humanity, behemoths waded amongst the sea of roots and vines, noble beasts that myths claimed were the direct descendants of the first creations.

Yet that edge of the wood was still young. Young at least compared to where Ka-san raised me – where the ancient trees reigned and the very air was alive. There, even those hulking creatures would find themselves pups amongst the trunks, bawling beneath boughs so thick they created eternal night.

After I left, I realized those mountains – my home – held no name. It was mentioned only in hushed whispers by those who lived in the sparse villages beneath their immense shadows. "It's sacred," they hissed at me, pulling their cloaks tighter, their eyes darting. "No one lives there but the kamigami. Do not anger them." I'd grit my teeth then, and _he_ would give me that look of his as he ushered me from the crowd that had formed to gawk at the strange girl claiming she was from those mountains. The mountains of myths and legends.

The thing is all those stories were true. Kamigami did live there. Kamigami who gazed out upon the world and saw what it had become. The human instinct for destruction left the earth shackled and bloodied by the Third Great Shinobi War. The Villages fought viciously, each side seeking an advantage to slit the others' throats. Hatred, fear, and desperation plagued the land. Unfortunately, some shinobi began to believe in old legends, in the peaks where the kamigami walk.

I didn't know about any of the horrors raging outside my home then, but I look back on it now and see the irony in it all. An irony I'm now able to tell in the tongue of man. The irony that a human's belief destroyed the kamigami, and how I, Mira, adopted human of the wolf-kami, ensured it.

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**A/N:** **Oh, hello there, person brave and curious enough to click on this story! I guess you're reading this for some additional information so you get more of a sense of what it's about. This will be my longest author's note as generally I only keep them on my latest chapter update. I don't know if anyone reads them or likes them, but bear with me if you want to get a better sense of this story.**

**First off, I'd agree with one anonymous reviewer and say that you should "think Naruto combined with Shintoism, Mushi-shi, Princess Mononoke" [high praise and probable influences since I love those works] though this isn't any sort of crossover story.**

**This is essentially a plot behind &amp; intermixing canon. It begins before Kakashi Gaiden and ends with Naruto Shippuden, giving more of a focus on the religious/spiritual side of the Narutoverse, specifically incorporating Shintoism to explain major and minor canon events. Essentially, kamigami are real and are the instigators of the Naruto plot: it'll be canon events but with a new perspective on motives and developments.**

**Essentially, the main character will be an OFC [Goodbye to those now clicking away! Thanks for stopping by!] who will be amongst the ones you know and love from the series but having her own plot – though that heavily involves the others' lives as well and influences canon events. As this involves kamigami [which do not exist in the main story], there will be other OCs as well to help flesh out the plot [ie wolves, the priests at the shrine, kamigami, etc.]; however, I tie them into canon so they are not utterly random figures. For example, some canon characters may have another identity which ties them into the Shinto aspect. I hope reveals like that and other Easter eggs will be fun to catch.**

**As the OFC grows up, the maturity level will increase as she ages (in the sense of more cuss words and romance) but there will be no PWP moments (to be honest, not really good at writing that stuff anyway). Though there will be fluff moments, they will contribute to the story as additional motivations, but it will never take over the overarching plot.**

**As my writing has been called "immersive" (which is pretty cool – shout out to my commenters) but also probably the polite form of "long build up". While I will change this delay in upcoming updates, I'll warn that canon characters appear on C****_hapter 6 _****though they get involved with the MC on Chapter 16; however both the action of this story and shinobi interactions begin earlier than that for the Shinto plot. (Yes, I can imagine most of you going "Okay, OFC I can do, but no canon for so long? Screw that, this is FanFiction! I'm not here for this junk!" and clicking away right now, but again, thanks for stopping by!) **

**For those of you still interested, get pumped! There will be a mixture of darker and lighter parts, though the former will be a bit heavier at the beginning to instigate that drama you all crave.** **This'll be a long one, folks. Hope you enjoy the ride! General feels + ConCrit encouraged!**

**Either way, happy reading on FanFiction!**

**Disclaimer: I make no claims to ownership of any part of Naruto. From here on out, there will be kamigami, wolves, chakra and musubi, death, vengeance, and epic-ness. Chocolate and candy will make multiple cameos. Let's do this.**


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't understand it. It looked so fragile. All of it. The four buildings were crumpling beneath the onslaught of encroaching boughs, their unnatural walls caving beneath the natural hostility reserved for those who don't belong. The feebly trodden paths were already disappearing beneath a rug of weeds and grass, their existences soon only to be memories. From what I could sense, the whole shrine would sink beneath the unflagging waves of the woods.

My stomach squirmed as if filled with frantic worms, and a low whine escaped my throat. I lifted my nose, scrunching it as I smelled seared flesh upon the smoke that rose from the largest building. Lights flickered through the wooden slats, signaling the presence of the intruders. _Eating, _I thought, hunkering back low to the ground. I gnawed my lip, my nerves getting the better of me.

My gaze flicked to the smaller two buildings – one filled with refuse, the other a shed that stored their food. A familiar urge whispered in my ear. _It's so fun and easy_, it mused. Eager for any distraction, I latched onto it, forcing trickery to drown out my fear. My nails raked the soil as a shiver ran down my back, memories of strange yet delicious tastes dancing on my tongue. My stomach rose an inch off the ground – I was ready to slither through the shadows and pounce upon my prey.

I froze for a moment, squirming as I eyed the last building. It was unlike the other slapdash structures. Framed by an emerald pond and ever-blooming cherry trees, it was a part of the nature here, standing tall and delicate like some sort of flower. The roof was carefully inlaid with rectangular stones, its ends tipping upward like ashen petals. Its white walls and supporting oak beams were fastidiously clean, its porches always swept. Nature left it untouched: not even the lightest breeze ever fluttered its papered walls.

Of course, I felt my gaze returned. My lips tugged low as I dipped my head and swiveled away from its chastisement. Guilt still tickled my gut as the glare from Ka-san's shrine grew heavier but my gaze flicked back to the treasure trove. I knew the chiding I'd get once she'd smell the human's smoke clinging to my hair, infesting my breath. Still, my mouth watered.

_She's the one who wants me to become more human, _I grumbled, my greed tickling that festering wound. _I mean, if they just didn't make it so easy- _I pushed myself up but froze just as a light breeze bore a heavy presence. Eyes widened, I dropped to my stomach, letting the scent of old rain, dark soil, and fresh blood wash over me. The familiar musk grew stronger as the wolf materialized from the shadows and stalked up beside me. His long, powerful stride flaunted his strength as his midnight coat, glistening as if with hundreds of stars, declared his health. The scars brandishing his bloodied snout sported his life of triumphs in hunt and combat.

'_Mira-dono,' _he greeted, nipping my hair in affection. He lay down beside me, his gaze settling on the shrine before us. '_I figured you'd be here, little one. I hope you aren't planning any more mischief.'_

I lowered my chin to the ground, glancing at him out of the corner of my vision. He had earned that lax way he held himself, but the constant flaring of his nostrils, the constant roving of those sharp eyes, belied his constant alertness. His ears twitched, his left one a bit stiff because of the large scar stitching its center.

I wouldn't be able to do anything. Not tonight.

I rolled my eyes and huffed as I fell onto my stomach. My belly gurgled out a betrayed whine, and I puffed out my cheeks as I pawed at the dirt in front of me.

Kizuato-san's amber eyes focused on me, light amusement dancing there. I turned, my lips already curling as I saw that fangless, hairless human stare back at me – my reflection as insulting as ever. Nothing would ever be frightened by that bony frame, that rounded face. I could only hope that age would sharpen my features, strengthen my limbs like they already had with my siblings.

The wolf rubbed his snout with a heavy paw, remarking, '_You'll be able to eat their food soon enough, Mira-dono.' _We watched the smoke spiral into the air, climbing a current I traced with my eyes. His golden gaze rested upon me once more, his sharp senses already penetrating my charade. '_Are you nervous?'_

I drew my lips back. '_No,' _I grumbled. '_Why would I be? They're humans'._

He cocked his head, amusement relaxing his ears. '_What a tone for someone who has always spied on them. You've always asked questions. 'What are those weird sounds they're making? Why do they claw at the ground with those weird branches? Why do they smell so bad?' And my favorite 'Why are they even here?''_

I felt my skin grow hot as pride expanded within me. My fur bristled, but I kept the growl from my throat.

Kizuato-san lifted his snout, his eyes growing softer as his chest billowed. '_You are a wolf, Mira-dono. No matter where you go, you will always be one of my pack. You have nothing to prove.'_

I opened my mouth, puncturing my ballooned cheeks. The breath slid out between my lips as an equally weak breeze tossed my matted fur. My brow furrowed as I sniffed the frail wind, knowing its journey was nearing its end. It had come a long way, but all I could catch were the scents of wolf and man. Their battle for supremacy ignited in my nose, their vicious war-cries tickling the nerves there. As the battle built with no side close to victory, I couldn't take it anymore: I sneezed and silenced them all.

Kizuato-san, chuckling with that wolf's shake of shoulders, too turned his nose to the wind. As had kept happening recently, a small crease settled over his brow. I knew it wasn't the human's scent bothering him: he was used to their terrible smell.

'_What is it?' _I asked, taking another whiff of the air. My weaker nose always seemed to miss everything.

The frown left him as he turned towards me. '_Blood. Distant and human. Nothing to worry about.' _He swished his tail, his nose already wrinkling as he assessed the shrine once more.

I stared at where the breeze had limped from and cocked my head. For as far as I could see, there were only rows upon rows of trees, their peaks undulating like stalks of grass as a stronger gale raced amongst them. For as long as I had lived, I had never seen their end, had never reached the land that stretched out flat as meadows, had never seen what Ka-san seemed to fear.

_Not for lack of trying, _I grumbled to myself.

I froze as what felt like wet pebbles pressed into my back and nudge me. Of course, even that fraction of force sent me nearly sprawling onto my back. Gaining my balance, I scowled back at Kizuato-san who dipped his snout again to nuzzle me onto to my feet. His eyes laughing, he murmured, '_It's time for you to go home, Mira-dono.' _He stood up himself and stepped over me, his chest towering above me as his tail washed me beneath a trail of midnight.

I blanched but forced my feet to jog after him. I kept close to his back paws, slightly grateful for the constant barrage of little stones he kicked up that kept me focused on deflecting rather than the future. I followed the temporarily cleared path he carved through the bushes until we broke onto an old hunting trail and padded up the narrow slope towards the rest of the pack. Their warm, earthy scent embraced me – one that smelled like young saplings and sunburnt fur. My ears perked as I could hear the yipping of my adopted littermates, and my jog broke to a sprint.

I burst through the underbrush and pounced upon my unsuspecting victim. Ashi-chan yelped as I leapt onto her neck, yanking her down to the floor. The youngest of the pack and the only girl of Kizuato-san's litter, she was a marbled white, stringy pup. She was just starting her growth spurt, leaving me just under her chest. I could still drag her to the floor albeit only if I took her by surprise.

'_Sis!' _I yapped, prancing around my sister's straightening form. '_Congratulations on your first hunt!' _

She wriggled on her back, giving a happy howl, and leapt to her feet, as spry as ever. '_I did it! I did it!' _She nipped my neck, daring me to topple her again, when our two brothers, Teru-kun and Utau-kun, tackled her from the side. Utau-kun escaped the ensuing tangle of legs and snapping jaws and trotted over to me, giving a quick shake of his black and grey tail.

'_Where were you?' _he badgered, shoving my face with his equally-sized nose. '_You're not celebrating our fifth hunt?'_

I lifted my snout and turned away, puffing out my chest. _'When I get one, I will.'_

His lips wrinkled as he cocked an ear. _'It's about being a team, right? If you hadn't gotten close and confused them with your human's scent, we wouldn't have gotten any food.' _He realized that he'd said something worse when my glare darted between his eyes and throat – the usual start to any tussle. He lowered his ears and straightened up. '_Well, I saw you almost got your own one? Just got bucked off, huh?'_

I wrinkled my nose and took his apology. '_Next time. I just didn't get a good grip.' _

'_Yeah, right,' _Teru-kun called over as he held Ashi-chan down. '_You're the size of a flea. I have to be careful where I sneeze when you're around since I'd send you flying.' _

Already aching for a fight, I launched myself at him, unable to budge the figure that was nearly identical to that of his father. I hung from his chest, latched onto his fur and unable to do anything as his shoulders shook in jaunty mirth.

His chest rumbled beneath me as he growled, _'You trying to take on a future alpha, little flea?'_

I sank my fangs as deep as they'd go but found myself only gagging on an explosion of fur. By the long, poking bristles, I knew I hadn't even made it to his undercoat.

'_My point exactly,' _Teru-kun mused, scratching himself and flinging me to the floor.

I landed on my back and glared up at his toothy grin. I picked up a stone beside me and flung it, smacking him on the nose. He yipped, rubbing the spot with his paw. Ashi-chan, taking advantage of her position, flung Teru-kun off of her, and the scuffle began again. As soon as Kizuato-san stepped out of the bushes, a content resignation in his shoulders, the pups shouted '_Dad!_' and rounded on him.

Giggling, I settled myself on my haunches and gazed at the rest of the pack. The other adults were here – Tsume-san, Shizuka-san, Isamu-san, and Hana-san. The first three acknowledged me with a wave of their tails as they returned to a well-earned lethargic drowse: accompanying us on hunt must've sapped both nerves and energy.

I pursed my lips. _We hadn't done _that _badly. _I thought back to Shizuka-san snatching me away from a stampede of hooves with a snap of fangs. I looked to her mottled form and saw that she was already snoring. _I mean they only had to step in a few times, right? _

Hana-san lifted herself with a long stretch and a yawn, and padded over to where I sat. The conscious wolves dipped their ears to her, waiting for her to settle to be sure there was no order. I lowered my own chin as the matriarch settled her mottled-cream form beside me. Her lips curled back over yellowed fangs, and for a moment I thought she'd chide me for not having rubbed off the humans' scent. Instead she nuzzled my cheek as her tail encircled me. She pulled me closer, her warmth staving off the shivering I had learned to ignore.

Nestled like that, we watched the mock battle – one where the pups had circled the father. Teru-kun pounced with a weight already rivalling his father's. Kizuato-san easily dodged the blatant attack and with a quick shove of his head, knocked the pup to the floor.

'_He's grown,' _Hana-san appraised, watching Teru-kun leap to his feet, already going in for his next attack. She turned her yellow eyes to me. '_As have you, Mira-dono.'_

Pleased even if it was a lie, I kept silent, watching as Kizuato-san quickly knocked Teru-kun and Ashi-chan to the floor and gave them his critiques. Utau-kun, never much one for fighting, had already slunk up to his mother's side and settled there.

Hana-san looked down at him and began cleaning some muck behind his ears. _'You don't want to practice?' she murmured. _

He flicked his ear. _'Well, if Mira-chan isn't, I shouldn't have to.'_

Hana-san's fur stiffened around me as she said, _'Mira-_dono_, Utau-kun. Show your respect.'_

'_It's just Mira-chan though,'_ he whined back as confused as I had always been by the adults' strange formalities with me.

His chestnut eyes fell on me for support and I found myself fidgeting as I defended, _'I like Mira-chan better.' _

Hana-san fixed me with a cool eye, but we were saved when Kizuato-san trotted over to us. He licked Hana-san's cheek, soothing her expression, before he turned towards me. '_Ready to head back, Mira-_dono_?' _he emphasized.

I jumped to my feet and hopped out of the forest of cream fur. My littermates, sensing my departure, swarmed me, nipping and licking and yapping about hurrying back. Amongst the barks and yelps of goodbyes, I heard Utau-kun murmur a _'Thanks, Mira-chan'_ just before Kizuato-san's teeth grasped my arm and lift me above the stampede of paws.

I gave a yip of farewell as I sailed into the air over their heads. I swayed in the air as Kizuato-san left the clearing, my legs catching on the jagged underbrush that the alpha's coat glanced away. He lowered me to the soil, and, gaining my feet, I rubbed my shoulder, feeling the bruises already forming as I flicked his saliva off. The wolf playfully snorted, the gust of hot air blasting my face. Grinning as I shook my fur back into place, I slid into my spot in between his black forepaws, and ran to keep up with his slow, yet long-strided, stroll.

As we waded through the green, I could sense Kizuato-san's gaze. I peered up at him, feeling as if hundreds of ants were scrambling across my skin. '_I'm not nervous,' _I spoke, but the snap in my voice betrayed me.

Kizuato-san gave a low growl in warning.

'_I knew this was going to happen,' _I continued, reining in the bite. I looked down at my dirt-covered, pink limbs. '_Ka-chan told me since I was little. I need to learn their ways too. I'm-' _I paused, gnawing my cheek. '_I am what I am.'_

Kizuato-san tapped me with his nose, dampening my back. '_The pack will always be close, little one. You will never be alone.'_

'_But what if they change me?' _I couldn't help but whimper.

A warm breeze floated past me with his deep exhale. '_That's the disease of us mortals, Mira-dono. Change is just another name for time, and none of us know the cure.' _His nose poked the back of my head. _'Isn't that what Okami-sama wanted you to realize when she first sent you to us? Weren't you scared then too?'_

Still scowling, I silenced another whine and strode through woods which grew darker. We climbed no trail – at least, none visible to that mortal sense. The delicate route was imperceptible to Kizuato-san who padded behind me, making sure his gaze never left my form: he had said that once he had paused to scratch his ear – when he looked back, I had disappeared.

We passed through trunks which grew old and decadent, bestowed their majesty by time itself. The lacings of leaves above thickened until they cloaked the sky, leaving those below in eternal night. While there was life in this younger wood, it was much more _restrained_ here, contained by the life forms themselves. The foxes that prowled, the deer that grazed, the owls that soared – each held a splinter of what the ancient wood was: pure life. There, energy flowed in and out of everything, uniting all in the cosmos's bond. There, even Ka-chan held deference to the weakest breeze.

That's where I was heading: the land of the kamigami.

It called to me – that source of the universe. I knew we were close when ethereal mist spiraled up from the ground. Kizuato-san slowed to a stop, already pawing his nose. He had explained that he was senseless here: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch all abandoned him to the fog. But for me, I could feel that mist enter my bones, making me strong, making me infinite. Here, I could feel the reaches of the universe.

Kizuato-san's ears fell back, his tail curling low. '_I leave you again at the edge of eternity,' _he murmured, his head lowering. He turned his golden gaze on me and gave me a soft nuzzle. '_I will see you soon, little one. We will be waiting for you.'_

I gave a soft whine of farewell and watched him turn his back and lope through the woods, returning to the pack. I faced the ancient mists and stepped into their sacred depths.

I grew lighter with every step as if my weighty flesh was dropping away. With my body went my senses. Sight, touch, smell, hearing: they were background sensations now – the buzzing of bees in an amber-streaked meadow. I let them fade without yearning. I had no need for them for I could perceive the strings now. The ones whose delicate threads weaved the pattern of reality. These strings bound the very cosmos: these string vibrated within my very soul. I could feel their essence as substantial as a thought in my mind yet unbounded from that rigidity. As I stepped deeper into the Wood, their energy was a warm spring that cascaded over my frozen body, and I was sent adrift in the currents beneath the surface of reality.

Beaming, I stretched out my hands and felt the strings tremble at my touch. It was something I had never been taught. I didn't need to be. It was a knowledge so innate it couldn't really be put into words: a Truth, really. Just as how a pup knew not to breathe underwater, but if I forced myself-

I stopped for a moment, my fingers sunken into the plush fabric of existence, and I let the rest of me fade. It was like standing just inside the cavern's maw, moonlight pooling just behind me, staring at the pure ebony in front of me. I stood there, knowing that if I turned right or left, the perspective of mortals would be restored to me. Yet I didn't: I stared straight into the emptiness beyond. Soon, it was only me and the Black. Then, that boundary disappeared as well, and I became Nothing.

That's what those cosmic threads were really made of: Nothing.

With a thought, I plucked a familiar chord and watched those tendrils shiver and ignite the wind. I felt it curl around me, twisting around my chest and up my neck. But that was all: like breathing underwater, I knew the consequences. Any interruption would fade eventually – the universe had a way of correcting itself. But if left irritated – if I left that water in my lungs-

I coughed that water out, returning to the mouth of the cave. I steadied those strands myself, soothing them to their natural vibration. The air quieted around me; I defined myself in that Nothingness, found the outlines of my flesh and soul, and turned away.

I had asked Ka-san once from where these strings had all come. She had looked at me then – a long, silent stare – then turned to the one thing that seemed to handle the threads without consequence. And that's where I was headed now. That's where Ka-san waited for me. By the Sapling – the embodiment of the Nothingness itself.

'_A trace from one of those who existed long before us and will exist long after us,' _she always murmured, tail lowering beneath its eminence. '_The Kamiyonanayo: the first children of existence itself.'_

'_Where are they now?' _I once asked, blinking up at the barren limbs, an eye narrowed, a brow lowered.

'_Asleep,' _she rumbled, her ears falling flat, her tail swishing. '_They are resting, tired from sculpting the universe. Tired from warring.' _Despite lying on her brow, I could feel her full attention was upon me by the subtle twitching of her ear. '_Man was the one who stopped them.' _

I had frowned at that, twisting my fingers in her fur. _ 'If humans are so strong, why do they look so weak?' _

Ka-san tilted her head, forcing me to grab on as a thunder rumbled through her body. Behind her chuckling, the air filled with a poignant pause, but she never did tell me the joke. In the end, she just twitched an ear, nudging my side, and strolled away.

Now, I stared up at those skeletal branches again – the backbone of these ancient, sacred grounds. In these strange woods, it was stranger still to have a cherry tree as the heaviest, crowning jewel – especially one that had failed to blossom all this time. A being whose peak disappeared into the shimmering mist above, its effervescent bones spread like veins throughout the whole wood. It was from these roots that the ethereal mist bloomed: like the tree itself, these offshoots were channels, flowing from the fabric of the upper realm, Takama-ga-hara, spilling forth spiraling shadows of an immortal land that revived those cosmic tendrils.

I chewed the insides of my cheeks, the Sapling's strange energy tugging on my very essence as if luring me to that realm beyond. Ka-san had told me she too felt that pull: all kamigami did. Now more than ever as more and more of these sacred springs faded from the world. My brow knitting together, I turned away from its faint rays, if one could call that essence it gave off light.

As I strode closer to their source, those cosmic tendrils tickled my nerves. The mist grew thick around the base of the Sapling, but the world around me grew brighter: not even the mist could stop the rising sun of my Ka-san as I strode up to her. She once had told me that most humans couldn't look directly at a kami: even I had trouble at first, she said, though I'd had grown used to it by then. I blinked, adjusting to her brilliance.

Though she was lying on her stomach, she still rose before me like a mountain. My neck cracked as I met her gaze, my eyes watered as I perceived her radiance. Searing flames danced upon her: searing flames of the deepest scarlets and the richest golds created intricate, shifting patterns, each destroyed as a new one emerged. An ethereal light poured from her figure, turning the night to twilight, setting the mist to a shimmer. Her fur was constantly in motion, appearing more like white, roiling clouds that barely masked a raging sun. But it was her eyes that made it so difficult. They were a scorching amber that pierced your innermost being, scrutinizing your basest self with feral hunger. But now one huge orb – a glinting topaz larger than myself – fixed upon me.

Her head lifted, her ears perked forward. At her motion, those flames frantically dashed against each other before rocking back to a soothing forth. '_I missed you, Mira,' _she rumbled like thunder off the mountains. '_Was the hunt successful?'_

I nodded but lowered my gaze.

Her tail swished behind her, creating a gust that nearly blew me to the floor. I dug my toes in, my nails locking into the dirt. '_But you did not catch your own yet?' _

'_No, Ka-san,' _I answered, rubbing my cheek with a shoulder. '_Not yet.'_

She righted her head and beckoned me to come closer with a sniff. I blanched, knowing what would come next. I gave a soft whine, but her rose. I gulped and quickly trotted over to her. With a hot, steamy, and sticky slurp, she licked up my bare form, scraping the dirt and gore off with what felt like thousands of broken pebbles. I looked down at my bare frame, seeing my skin redden from the damage.

'_I cannot have you fresh from the hunt in front of Shika-san,' _she murmured. A happy glint settled in her eye as she caught my expression. She let out a warm breath, the gust wrapping affectionately around me, holding me, soothing me. With me being so small, this was her form of nuzzling me.

_It's happening now? _I thought. _Now?_

Quivering, I raked down the fur she lifted into a haphazard spike, setting it flat about my face with the back of my paw. A retort scrambled to my tongue, but a nervous hitch in my muscles prevented its escape. My breathing shallowed as an unwelcome shiver rolled down my spine, my foreboding intensifying. I lifted my gaze to Ka-san's sharp appraisal of my nervous figure.

'_Mira', _she rumbled, '_a wolf is never frighte-'_

'_I'm not!' _I snarled, my nerves snapping as my gaze met hers. I could see her pupils widen then turn to slits at this challenge. I yipped and fell to the floor, baring my stomach to her. Her rebuke vanished, and she quickly comforted me with another gentle, warm puff of air which washed over me like a summer's breeze.

'_Mira, there is no need to fear,' _she spoke, tone like an earthquake's cadence. '_You will thrive. I believe you will even be too much for those priests to handle, yet this is their sacred duty as it has been handed to them for uncountable deaths and rebirths of the moon.'_

She lifted her gaze to beyond the forest, towards where the humans lived. '_It is time for you to live amongst them. The forest has become too strong with you.' _She looked down at me, and closed her eyes, the equivalent of a toothy grin breaking her lips. '_We cannot have you too wild, young pup, can we? Now, come on. The others are arriving.'_

I choked my quaking gut and forced a grin back. I gave a mock growl, charged her, and jumped onto her neck. I grabbed onto the drowning mass of white fur, ignoring that shock of pure ethereal energy bursting through me. As I climbed to the cresting peak of her neck, she gave a playful shake. I timed myself, letting go just in time for hers to launch me into the air. I yipped as I hung there for a moment above her, seeing her maneuver to catch me below. I fell onto her, sliding down the side of one of Ka-san's cotton ears and bouncing harmlessly upon Ka-san's downy head. Nestled between there, I could only see white in every direction, yet a quick scramble to the edge of her brows where her hair was stunted afforded me a clear view of our surroundings. Here, I could be a kami too.

As the quivering of those cosmic threads grew to a quaking, their forms manifested in the mist. The kunitsukami of this sacred grove gathered before us, their heads bowed before Ka-san and the Sapling. Below me, I heard the wolf-kami murmur to herself that old nursery rhyme she had sung to me so long ago. '_And so they gathered, their roles reversed. Mortal flesh untethered, breaking the kami's curse.' _


	3. Chapter 3

My fist tightened around Ka-san's fur as I fidgeted under the weight of their gazes. They were staring at me. All of them. The kamigami of the forest had gathered into a loose ring before Ka-san and me, all careful to avoid going to near the Sapling. Feeling my quaking, Ka-san twitched a muscle, reprimanding me without a word. '_Wolves do not whimper_,' I knew she was saying. I bit the inside of my cheek – a place recently growing more tattered – and straightened.

I stared at the foremost kamigami who stood before us. They took on the shape of their favored ones: Inoshishi-san the Boar, Washi-san the Eagle, Shika-san the Stag, and Fukurō-san the Owl. Far below my ancient Ka-san, they were the stronger spirits of this forest, shimmering under a weaker ephemeral flame. Behind them ranged the weaker ones – the yokai – who took on the form of strange, ghostly apparitions: some appeared human like me, but rows of sharp teeth, oversized heads, and matte horns revealed the truth. Others were as small as a leaf, the shades of summer's shift to winter, who bobbled and clicked as they moved. Some took on flickering shades of rabbits, mice; others, people could mistake for shrubs if they didn't notice the clawed feet scuttling about beneath.

Together, their constant movement set me before an ethereal vortex, but I wasn't afraid of them. I had known them since before I could remember: Inoshishi-san taught me the importance of a good nap after a mud-bath, Shika-san let me swing from his antlers, Fukurō-san teased me with riddles, and Washi-san had shown me the heavens. The yokai had always been up for anything whether it be a game, contest, or prank: in truth, they were the ones who taught me all the tricks I used in order to steal food from the shrine. So no, it wasn't them I feared.

'_It is time,'_ Ka-san announced, staring at all before us.

'_It is?' _Shika-san began, tapping the soil with his cloven hoof, moonlit flowers twinkling into life at his touch.

Fukurō-san bobbed his head then twisted it completely horizontal. '_Mira-dono, is ready to start the human's training – whatever that may be. I doubt it will be more helpful than what I've taught her.'_

Ka-san's muscles swayed beneath me, forcing me to hold tight, as she bared her fangs at the owl's tactlessness._ 'This is no game, kunitsukami,' _she growled. '_There must always be _balance_.'_

Ka-san's tail flicked, rustling up a snap of wind that had the smaller yokai fumbling for balance. '_Kamigami once roamed the entire world living beside and amongst the humans,' _she spoke. '_But something has changed. We all have sensed it. The life – the spirit – of this earth has dimmed. Now those of this realm have congregated in waypoints such as this in order to survive.'_

She bared her fangs and fixed them with flaming topaz eye. '_It has become hard for us kamigami to remain outside places such as these woods – places connected to Takamagahara – for very long. While the light here has not begun to flicker, refugees speak of these asylums failing around the world. This is the demise we too face if we do not act.'_

'_We understand, Okami-sama,' _Inoshishi-san grunted, his black eyes flashing around at the other kamigami. He turned towards me. '_It's just hard to-' _He trailed off, his chest heaving as sentimentality bubbled beneath his tough hide.

'_Say goodbye, Okami-sama' _Washi-san finished, clicking his talons upon an outcropping of stone by the Sapling's root. He fixed a golden eye on me. '_It's been too long without humans. It'll be hard to see Mira-dono leave.'_

My heart dropped at those words, but I kept it from my face. I would see them again. At some point. I wasn't being abandoned. Heat closed my throat. I wasn't being abandoned.

Shika-san bowed his oaken rack of antlers. '_We give you all of our blessings, young one.' _He turned away from the Sapling. '_Even here, we can feel the ravages of the storm just outside. They have lost their way out there.'_

'_Like they always do,' _Washi-san clicked, resettling his wings. '_It seems another guide is needed.'_

It was then a rare wind coursed through the woods, stroking all in its path. All but the Sapling – which remained ever-still – reacted with a lowering of their heads. I closed my eyes as the breeze buffeted my hair, thankful that I could hide the growing wetness.

'_It is time,' _Ka-san murmured as if in agreement to some silent figure. The kamigami who had remained silent began to yowl and howl, offering their own words of encouragement and goodbye. The world hitched below me as Ka-san stood up and began to saunter away, the crowd parting before her.

I tried to force a goodbye and a thanks from my throat, but all I could muster was a silent stare at all I passed. I suppose that was the moment I would recall most. Well, I suppose I should say feeling that I would recall most. It was the first time I felt completely powerless in my own body as I stared at their faces. I would hear later that kamigami always knew what was in a human's heart, and I hope, at least that moment, it was true. It would break my heart to accept that the time when I had last seen them, when I was unable to force any words out, they might have thought they meant nothing to me.

I remember that moment so well because, years later, I would realize something. They were immortals: I probably meant nothing to them.

We moved towards the outer edge of the Wood, my breathing growing faster and shallower with every stride. I buried my face into the thick, warm cotton that was Ka-san's fur. Her muscles rolled beneath my cheek as she slipped through the woods, a white shadow. I watched her shoulder crest like a wave of snow before sinking again beneath the foamy white. Cradled in her warmth and the slow sway of her stride, I could almost imagine that this was just any other day. Almost.

Instead, I found my mind straining to memorize the twitch of her muscles, the way her breath came in slow and steady like the waves in a lake, her very essence. I tried to memorize everything, knowing that after this – after I left her – I would change. I would become human.

My panic was broken by a soft growl. '_There is no reason to fear,' _Ka-san spoke, her rumble echoing in my bones. '_We will see each other again, though not in this way.'_

My gut crunched, but I said nothing. I didn't want to go. I didn't understand why I needed to leave her or the others, but I knew Ka-san had her reasons. I knew there was something greater at play here – something I just _couldn't _see yet.

_Maybe that's why she's sending me_, I thought, burying my head into her fur. _The humans might show me what the kamigami can't._ I won't deny that curiosity nibbled the edge of that thought, but as the ache built behind my eyes, I knew that I didn't care about any of it. Not really. In the end, I went for the reason any other child would: because their mother told them.

We were silent for the last few minutes – what felt like moments to me. I felt her movements slow to a halt and her weight shift as she settled on her haunches – an act that usually prompted me to slide off. I twisted my fists into her fur, chaining myself to her warmth, her guidance. I shook as a low rumble echoed in her chest, and rose a bit as her fur bristled. There was no argument to be won here. With a grimace, I let go and slid down her back, rolling into the plush of her tail.

I pushed my way out and blinked. We were at the edge of the old wood, the mist blanketing the land. Ka-san's glow afforded some definition to the ghost-world in front of us. The trees barely visible were half the size of those we were leaving: their lowest branches could brush Ka-san's chest, but like many things, they seemed to shrivel back in fear.

'_Here?' _I craned my neck back at Ka-san. My fists latched onto the grass that towered above me.

She lay down, her cheek beside my body.

'_Here,' _she responded, her voice rolling through my mind like a thunderclap. '_They are waiting.' _

I lifted my nose to the wind, catching the pungent scent of humanity: like heady sweat and suffocating smoke. There were subtle differences that marked individuals. There was a group of them close. They had left the shrine, and now must be at the edge of the woods.

'_It is time,' _Ka-san repeated, continuing her gentle pushing.

I gritted my teeth, not moving an inch.

She twisted her head and blew air at me from her nostrils. As my hair flung back, I bared my teeth. '_Why?' _I both yelped and whimpered.

'_Though I consider you my own, you are human,' _she answered. '_You must learn their ways as well. You will be the link between our worlds. You will remind them of the kamigami they have abandoned for bloodshed.'_

My lips met in a frown as her words clattered within my skull, not feeling right where they settled. I looked to the dirt, spying a pebble amongst the ancient world of green around it. I kicked it with my toe, sending it sprawling into the younger wood; it landed with the same side facing up. I growled. '_What could they know that kamigami don't?'_

She tilted her head, her ear flickering. '_That's the thing about humans. They know too much.' _She looked at the younger wood, towards the scent of man. '_Yet the troubling thing is that they always seem to forget too. Now, you need to remind them.' _She looked back at me, her sharp amber eyes softening to a molten gold. '_Mira-chan, there are many things I have not been able to tell you, things that cannot be uttered in these woods. Things you will learn when you are ready. Things only mortals can truly understand.'_

I blanched and turned my gaze to the floor.

'_You always were curious,' _she continued, a gentle cajoling in her tone. '_Too curious and too clever by half. If you stayed in these woods, you'd pick up worse habits than the yokai.'_

I looked up at her, the smile dribbling on my lips as I kept the tears locked away. I was of the wolf-clan: we did not cry.

Her ears tilted back as she moved to nuzzle me. I was enveloped in that white fur once more, and I hugged back with all of my might, burying my face into that comforting warmth. After a few moments, she poked me with her nose. I stumbled back only to be swallowed by the mist. I gained my balance and turned with a yelp, but Ka-san had already vanished.

My lower lip trembled, but the wetness on my cheeks only came from that mist that grew thicker, colder, and emptier. Still, I lowered my head and whispered, '_Goodbye, Ka-san.'_

Shaking the dewdrops off my skin, I turned to the smell of man and walked. When I emerged from the mist in the younger forest, figures loomed around me. Kizuato-san and his pack were there, sitting and waiting. I wasn't surprised that Ka-san had summoned them: I already had half a mind to run off and sulk. With my fellow pack watching, I could never do that.

'_Welcome back, Mira-dono,' _Kizuato-san murmured, his whiskers flicking. '_The weeks have been long without you.'_

I grunted a shallow, distracted greeting as I joined them. As a pack, we began to trot towards the priests. I wrinkled my nose as the smell of the men became stronger. I knew it was only worse at the shrine. I would probably have to stuff flowers under my nose to keep from retching all the time. _I'll probably have to wear their weird furs, _I thought too, apprehension brooding dislike within me. _I'll have to make their weird noises, dig with their weird branch, and yank up that weird tree stump from that hole._

We stopped on a crest above them, out of their sight but with them well within ours. I settled onto my stomach then, crawling closer. There were four of them, each figure wrapped in what wasn't their skin. Three bulkier figures with headier scents – males. One slender, gracile thing with a lighter stench that was female: somehow, she seemed to be carrying fire – a feat which made my hackles rise. They were talking with one another in that strange, lyrical tongue. They were arranged around the alpha – the shortest man who was hunched over and fragile with age. They kept plying him with long, hushed noises, yet he only replied with soft, curt tones. Out of all of us figures in the woods, he seemed the only one at peace; his eyes never left the forest – a patch of woods a distant right of us.

The wolves beside me were tense but curious as they stared down at the men, this being the closest they had ever gotten. It was some unspoken agreement between the two never to bother the other, never to enter the other's territory. I was the only one who had dared to enter their shrine willingly. I had wheedled Teru-kun once or twice, and he always got a snap or two when he returned.

'_Strange,' _Ashi-chan commented with a flick of her ear. '_How can they walk like that?'_ She remained frozen except for her tail. It was twitching behind her. She was ready for anything.

I kept my muscles unclenched. I rose no hackles, made no growls. I could not show weakness in front of the pack: I was not just a wolf, but the pup of the wolf-kami, of Okami-san. I turned towards the others and gave a dip of my head in thanks and goodbye. I walked down the crest, only rising into full view when I knew the pack was safe. I raised my figure out of the underbrush, appearing in full view of the priests. In true human fashion, none of them saw me.

From this distance, I could appraise the alpha more clearly. He had his arms by his side, with his flesh were covered by that odd, black wrapping – that faux-fur. His feet were similarly encased in a different, thicker looking material. He had tied a white vine across his stomach, and I could see the roll of a large belly beneath it. There were light wrinkles in a face that was entirely bald, save for an incredibly thick set of smooth, silver whiskers that trailed onto his chest. His cheeks were red – I expect from the cold wind that was blowing – but there was a light turn at the corner of his lips. He wasn't growling; no, his shoulders were relaxed, his stance was confident – he was content. Yet his eyes were a fierce shade of green – as dark as emerald.

I felt my soul unclench. He reminded me of Hana-san.

Two of the others behind him fidgeted, lines etched into their brows. It was the female – barely visible beneath a thick layer of that faux-fur – and the male with hair the color of a dying dandelion. They kept peering into the darkness, completely ignorant that the light at their side blinded them to whatever was outside its reach.

They're gawky appearance appeared like an extreme of the pups, Ashi-chan and Teru-kun. I relaxed further.

The other male, however, kept still. His black hair was thicker, longer – nearly covering the scar that rose from the side of his neck and up, past the back of his ear. There was no look of contentment on that face – no peace as his gaze pierced the woods. He stood the furthest from the rest, remaining at the edge of the light. Staring directly at me, his was the gaze that I first met. In fact, I had the feeling he had been watching us all this time.

I cocked my head at him, curious as to why he hadn't alerted the others. I looked at their alpha, one whose lips began to toy with the idea of a smile. He made a curious combination of sounds, and the scarred man gave a nod; the other two then jumped closer together, heads swiveling at the darkness.

_It's time, _I told myself. Conscious of my brethren behind me, I tried to strike a worthy figure as I strode towards them.

I didn't know what they were saying at that time. How could I have? I just remember the younger ones' shrill shouts as I came into view. The alpha tried to get them into order while the scarred one simply appraised me, a blank expression all the while. The alpha turned around and crouched down to my level. He reached out to me. I swear, I could see my humanity in his palm. The curious thing is, I never remember taking it.


	4. Chapter 4

I kept my head down, feeling exposed out here. I could feel their eyes on me, could feel their suspicion and anxiety settle upon my shoulders. A bitter wind kept snapping at my skin, first leaving me raw then numb. The alpha strode at my side, a strange lilt to his arthritic step. He kept peering down at me making a weird sort of chortle in his throat. His eyes were bright, happy even, and they regarded me in such a familiar way as if we were packmates reuniting after a long, lonely scout.

I didn't like it. I stared, or probably more accurately glared, back at his cheerful form.

I scowled back at the blonde man and the girl shivering. It seemed that despite their faux-fur, the elements were getting to them. Then I noticed that their eyes were nearly white, their knuckles so pale as if the skin had peeled back to reveal bone, their balled hands shaking: they weren't cold, they were afraid.

I started clacking my teeth, peering at the scarred one. He trailed behind me as if he was just out for a stroll. There was no sign of him even feeling the ground, much less the cold: he seemed to glide through space rather than walk like the rest of us mortals. I caught his eye – his matte black eye – and waited. He didn't turn his gaze: he didn't begin snarling. In the wolf's world, this would be us challenging the other; in the human, it felt like we were declaring ourselves equals, peers to be acknowledged.

_I'll have to watch him, _I considered, catching a small movement at the corner of his mouth. I slowly turned my attention in front of me, still feeling his gaze gnawing at the back of my neck. Just in case, I began to grind my teeth, sharpening them in case of a fight to come.

I jumped as a weight dropped over my shoulders but realized the alpha had only draped one of his faux-furs over me. I sputtered and gagged at the scent, leaping out of it. I just barely reigned in a snarl as I whirled on the man, only halted by the look in his eyes. It was like when Ka-san had fussed over me after I had torn up my arm: her eyes had been filled with that same completely selfless concern. Wanting to snarl but unsure of myself, wanting to run but too proud, I picked my pace up into a light jog, ranging out ahead of the group.

The alpha began to make those strange noises. His voice wasn't like the others: no, he didn't make those gargling barks. His voice was softer, weaker – age having carved his deep baritone to remind one of the wind brushing past leaves rather than barreling through canyons. He glanced down at me, but his conversation was obviously directed at his pack. Whatever he said, there was no obvious effect. The tension was still in the air, only now bristling beneath a hazy layer of normality.

My nails dug into the earth, some subconscious part of me attempting to set anchor. Yet I continued our slow trudge through an underbrush that grew weaker and weaker. The plants were more and more stunted, the grass barely reached my shoulders now. The smell of the forest succumbed to the sharp scent of the shrine. Even colors themselves died around me – the world now washed out with a muted palette. Instead of burgeoning life, everything here smelt tired, drowsy as if the woods had succumbed to the lifeless air.

My brow furrowed as I tucked my chin down. I could sense it without such signs. With each step away from the ancient wood, those celestial strings grew weaker, more diffuse – still alive, still rippling as they lay entombed within existence. If I reached them here – if I gouged my way to that Nothingness – and plucked them, reality would quake as they trembled.

I wrinkled my nose as one of my greatest gifts diminished as we came upon the shrine. We walked along the human's path now – one slightly worn but sharply redolent of their presence. I glared up at the jade-eyed priest. His happy glow was still there, and, if anything, he was shining brighter than before. His silver whiskers fluttered in the wind, revealing a slight smile playing about his lips.

We reached the shrine's entrance, two white wooden logs with a third slung curiously across their tops. The logs were met on their opposite sides by a thin wall which swayed slightly as a breeze hacked at its foundations. Though it was easiest to enter here – being an entirely unguarded entrance in an otherwise walled territory – I had never approached this way before. For my thefts, I had dug a tunnel beside the pond and used the foliage there to sneak through their territory. The humans passed under it without a care, but I stopped to appreciate the fine groove and ornate carvings of the white, roofed gate. More than anything, it was entering through here that made me realize my situation.

The woman gave a small cough, drawing my attention. They had gathered in front of the entrance to their first building. The blonde one held the door open, revealing a lit room inside. Warmth poured out of it, but for every reason I hesitated.

_I am a wolf. I am not afraid. _Gnawing my cheek, I trotted inside.

The rest gathered in behind me and stamped their paws and yanked off layers of that faux-fur. Meanwhile, I was utterly stricken: the explosion of scents made me retch, and I found my limbs wobbling as I lifted myself out of my collapse. I heard them muttering behind me – a tinge of worry in their tones – but none of them approached.

Panting and desperate for reprieve, I twisted towards the door. Of course, the blonde one had already shut it. _Useless, _I labeled him in a scratchy whine. I twisted back around, taking in the cramped room. I had no idea what I was looking at – four limbed thing made of wood everywhere – but judging by the odors it must have been where they ate.

I groaned, feeling a pain pulsing against my skull. The last time anything had felt this bad was when I had accidentally snorted a wasp. All the scents were crowded against my nostrils, battling one another for their chance to assault my senses. But one muscled the others out of the way. One made my head flip up, my eyes narrow, and a growl to rumble from my chest. _Smoke._

I hustled around the room, my paws skidding on the smooth wood. Rounding a corner of one of those larger human's objects, I saw the pit of smoldering embers. The female – revealed to be a thin, waif-like and pale creature – was bent over the flickering flames, adding on more dead branches.

I leapt towards the fire, driving the woman away as the oaky scent grew even stronger from the fresh fuel. The female yelped and dove away, shielding her throat, but I ignored her. My lips hiked up over my fangs as I whined, shifting my weight from paw to paw. I glanced back at the priests, watching them gasp and stare at me. Even the scarred one had widened his eyes. I wrinkled my snout at them, warning them back with a growl.

I lowered my paw as I considered how it had been like this last time too. That time when lightning had struck dry twigs, sparking fire just beside where my brothers, sister and I were tussling. Greedily, the fire had snapped and hissed, trying to conquer the wet territory around it but only succeeding in creating a single, viable flame. The other pups had instinctively slunk away, wary and fearful of the heat as all beings are. But I approached. Not without some of my own trepidation, not out of simple curiosity, but of one overriding feeling: hatred.

It was then that the woman snapped. There was no firmness in her stance nor in her voice as she exclaimed a flood of syllables that I had no hope of understanding. She made a lot of grand gestures with oddly petite paws with most of them pointing to me. The other men stared at her, glancing occasionally to the alpha who simply nodded along pacifyingly.

But she wasn't a threat. She was older than I realized, easily the oldest after the alpha. Folds of skin rested alongside her murky blue eyes and just above her shapely brows; her paws had long since sported that worn-yet-soft look. Her salty hair was thick and trailed down to the nape of her back, yet it lost its youthful luster. She had a thin frame beneath it all but held an air about her of not being shy when it came down to physicality, but my youth would assure my victory in any fight.

Recognizing that I wasn't in danger, I turned my attention back towards the true threat. The orange flames were swiftly maturing. I watched them grow, pulsing as they savagely bit into the dead bark. They swarmed the branches like carrion and did their duties just as efficiently. I had once thought it was a living creature, but Ka-san explained it to me, telling me how man relied so fiercely upon it. I didn't understand why – _how _they could trust this monster.

I reached out a paw, fingers extended to crush the flames and–

"No!" the woman's shrill voice barked – the tone of which led me realize its meaning.

I jumped back, snatching my hand back from the flames, and watched her. I didn't need to understand their language – her tone was enough for me to know it was a rebuke. Assessing that she wasn't going to attack me, I tossed a scathing glance at the fire.

'_I'll let you live,' _I snapped at it. _'For now.'_

I turned back to the humans only to realize that the alpha was asserting himself. Without the usual clashing of fangs or booming roars, I hadn't even realized he was doing so. He did it in a calm way, no threat in his manners yet the weight of his authority still visibly shoved her back into her place. His eyes turned on me, and the next thing I knew was that he was shuffling over towards me, cooing phrases like a hyperactive owl.

I started to bare my fangs when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rest of the priests tense up. I stopped, noting the scarred one's step forward. The alpha dropped to his knees and shuffled forward towards me – all the while making those noises. I stayed completely still, millions of scenarios bursting through my mind; a good number of them had me mauling him just to make him stop those sounds. Yet I acted on none of them.

He stopped a foot away from me. It took a hunter's eyes to see that he was quaking, though it wasn't because of me. There was no fear in those green eyes. Only pain.

I lowered my gaze to the floor, only for him to reach out with some dark brown thing on his palm. Habit made me take a cautious sniff, but I wouldn't have been able to smell it anyway. _Don't be outdone by a human, _I snarled at myself, beginning to combat my own trembling spirit.

Cautiously, slowly, I shuffled a few inches forward and gently lifted the object with my teeth. I yipped when it melted in my mouth, but all fears were swept aside as a tsunami of delicious creamy sweetness overtook my mouth.

_Food, _I realized, slowly beginning to nibble at its edge.

The alpha, beaming, gestured towards the treat. He started to make weird sounds, and I tilted my head as he repeated his actions.

"Choke-oh-let," he slowly clicked out. At least, that's what I heard.

I looked down at the thing nestled between my paws and back at him. I worked my mouth, my tongue too heavy to properly execute the task. "Choo-ca-law," I parroted back at him, only to dive back into the sugary goodness wrapping my soul.

After depleting the pile of chocolate the alpha had set out for me, I was still licking my hands, hoping that I'd find an escaped sweet nib when my energy went from manic to empty. Before I realized it, an exhausted body, a full stomach and the bone-thawing heat soothed me into a doze as the sugar left my system. Curled into a ball, I blearily watched the humans putter about the room, shaking this thing or cutting that. Fresh scents filled the air, making me unconsciously salivate. The woman noticed and paused beside me. With a shaking hand, she offered me a portion of the white root she had been carrying.

I sniffed it, more polite than curious, before returning back to my doze. I hated roots: it would be a long time before I ate one willingly.

The priests settled around a raised platform set into the ground, having arranged their dishes there as well. After fixing their own meals, at some unspoken countdown, they all lifted their portions into the air and exclaimed a jumbled bunch of syllables. They ate their food oddly – using small, straight sticks instead of just their mouths. I supposed instruction about those sticks would come soon enough.

I must've fallen asleep as I awoke to the light jostling of footsteps. I yawned and, for a second thinking I was with Ka-san, nuzzled into the figure holding me. Her light gasp broke the haze, and with a yelp I struggled out of her arms. I landed onto the floor with a thud and scampered to a corner. Crouched there, I turned towards her, my stomach low to the ground.

Looking around, I could see she had taken me into her den. Even with my deadened nose, I still knew that this room stank of her. Everything in it seemed well-worn from daily use, and the objects within it seemed to just _fit _her; they all had this flowery, graceful pattern that I had come to associate with her. The mat in the center was rather plain, but I could see an indentation in it from where she must sleep. Beside it lay a second mat of equal size yet completely unused.

I pulled up out of my crouch, the initial shock wearing off, and looked at her. She had a hand over her mouth and was trembling like a leaf in the wind. I cocked my head, watching as her cheeks grow red. Tears trailed down them, trying to soothe their burn. She buried her face in her hands, and dropped to her knees, all the while remaining silent. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew it had something to do with me.

_Maybe I hurt her?_ I realized as guilt and apprehension flooded through me. Fear cascaded over me as I considered what the other humans would do if they found out. Immediately, I dropped my stomach to the floor and crawled up to her, head low. Reaching her lap, I twisted over onto my stomach and nudged her with a paw.

She looked down at me, her watery eyes widening and drying with shock. Her lips cracked as various emotions vied for control, finally allowing a tired laugh escape her throat. She lunged for me, but didn't pull away at my startled yelp. She lifted me onto my shaky hind-legs, and nuzzled me, nearly choking me as she soaked me with her tears.

I took it all in with silence, and when she finally pulled away, she laughed at my bedraggled glare. She cooed all those syllables again, pushing back my fur from my face, and rubbing the thickest of the dirt patches off of me. She kept repeating the sound 'bath,' but I couldn't understand her; all I got was a sense of foreboding.

It was a while before she motioned towards the second mat. Understanding at least this, I lay down on it with a light 'umph.' I sprawled out as I watched her move about the room, cleaning up the dirt and then rummaging in some storage area. She was carrying large swaths of that faux-fur when she came back and plopped them down beside me. She picked one up – a rectangular one as large as a leaf of the Ancient Wood – and then placed it over me, tucking in the corner beneath the mat. I hyperventilated, but reigned in any instincts so that I didn't hurt her again.

It was only after she bopped me on the forehead and left the room, shutting the thin sliding door behind her that I exploded out of the sheets. I paced around the room, shaking my limbs to assure them that they were no longer trapped.

I inspected what seemed to be my new den – a cozy little thing if it had not been for her overpowering aroma. She kept it clean and neat, though that seemed to be an easy feat as it was rather empty. There were those beds, a pile of those horrid faux-furs that seemed to be for me, some complicated human objects that I dared not approach, and a thing in the corner that showed my reflection like a vertical of clear water. I was interested in the last the most, jumping around in front of it but grew bored quickly.

I circled to the window and peered out of it, looking around the walled-off grounds and then out towards the void beyond. I could see nothing of the forest; at least, not tonight. The moon had lost its throne, overtaken by a charging column of clouds. I could feel the electricity on the wind, smell the approaching hail.

I wrinkled my nose and, after some time, dropped off the windowsill. I looked at the roof above me and determined it was a good shelter for the approaching storm. I jumped back onto my bed and rolled onto my back. And then rolled onto my stomach. And then stretched. And then curled into a ball. A soft whine scraped its way out of my throat. _It's not Ka-san. _My stomach felt empty though I had just eaten. I felt restless even though I was exhausted. My lip kept quivering. I felt hot pinpricks at the corners of my eyes, but I growled and scratched them away.

_I am a wolf, _I reminded myself. _Wolves do not cry._

I lay there awhile, trying to wrestle my thoughts and emotions back into working order. After managing that lengthy feat, I sat up once more, thinking of what to do. The night was still young with the wolf's hour barely begun. With nothing in my room to occupy myself, I plodded to the door and opened it as I had seen the female do. It gave way with a loathsome creak that made me paw at my ears, but I nosed it open further and stepped onto the landing.

I had never been inside this building before, and I had always been curious when I was younger. I was surprised at its simplicity with the main room empty yet cleanly swept. By its open structure, it seemed to be a gathering place though it also seemed to be seldom used. Decorations lined the walls, but I approached only the largest statue in the center.

I halted a few feet before it and looked up at the figure before me. It was made of a white, polished stone that I had never seen before. The candles placed beside it created a sense of flame that raced along the smooth rock. Though I was unable to read the words, I recognized the statue that was framed by pine branches and wildflowers. _It barely looks like her, _I grouched as I peered at Ka-san's figure. _The eyes are all wrong. _

Still, I gave a soft whine as my heart ached. I sniffed, trying to hold back tears, and the scent of ash and flame coated my nostrils. Desperate for the distraction, I moved towards the eating area hoping that being knocked senseless by the odors would help. However, my ears perked as I heard low, rapid speech. A mixture of apathy and not being unable to understand, dampened my hesitation at intruding.

I maneuvered into the room, and, without looking at the priests still gathered around the table, I plodded over to the fire, hoping its smoke would numb me. They had gone silent, thinking that I hadn't noticed them. I left them this fantasy as I settled before the hearth and stared at flames which had dampened to an icy blue, that familiar revulsion filling me. I cocked my head at the fire, listening to the creaking of the wood which sacrificed itself to the rapacious blaze. The heat washed over me, a comforting though fickle sort of thing. The heady scent of ashes filled my mouth, and I swallowed once, twice but it didn't leave. The light played about the stones, twisting shadows this way and that.

'_I'm back,' _I growled at it.

I closed my eyes, trying to bury beneath reality. I lost myself to the darkness, focusing on those threads of flame. They seemed so happy, hopping to a chaotic tune and bouncing off the other strings. I bopped along with them, trying to pick up their rhythm, stalking their movements. I needed to be careful: this'd hurt me otherwise. When I had just got it right, I tried to twist them myself, recognizing the horrendous weight now added to them in this reality. Struggling, I tried directing them with a thought, and before me the flames meekly followed, only looking as if they were caressed by a butterfly's flap.

The fire didn't die.

Growling, I thrust my paw into the flames, intending to strangle them myself. There were bangs, gasps, yelps as the humans jumped to their feet. I turned, staring at each of them slowly, meeting their frightened gazes until they fell back in their chairs. Only the alpha had remained seated, watching me with those content jade eyes, arms crossed over his chest, a smile playing about his lips. I locked eyes with him as I removed my paw from the fire.

There were further gasps as the blonde one pointed at my paw. I looked down at it, curious to why he seemed so shocked. All ten fingers still there, all skin left completely unharmed. _Managed that much at least. _I shook my head, snarling at the still-crackling fire only to sniff as a liquid trickled out of my nose. I rubbed it with my forearm, surprised that it came away with fresh blood. _Back at that stage, are we? _I griped, turning towards the door to the shrine's grounds.

I swiped at it, but it didn't open like the other door. However, a calloused hand appeared and shoved it open for me. I looked up, locking eyes with the scarred man. Though he was as blank as ever, I could tell that he was smiling.

I tilted my head at him, yipped a thanks. I trekked out of the room, not giving the group another look though I could feel the weight of their gazes upon me. I was curious to explore the rest of the shrine's grounds, hoping to find something else to distract me. Yet as the door swung shut, I heard them whisper something to each other: something they would keep repeating as I grew up. After I picked up the language, I finally understood.

"What is she?"


	5. Chapter 5

Time seemed to speed up then. Though maybe it actually did: over the years, I had begun to suspect that time worked differently in the realm of the kamigami. I told them as much they asked my age, and, after trying to figure out some form of measurement – as wolves don't even count time – I said I had seen hundreds of reborn moons.

"Well, Mira-chan," Yori-senpai murmured, shoving his blonde hair back from his face, "you look like you were three when you first got here."

"Well a wolf's already an adult when they're three," I had countered, sealing a crack in the tamagaki wall surrounding the main shrine.

Moments like that stood out to me over those years. Everything else was a content blur; I remember even briefly debating whether they drugged me with all the food I began stuffing myself with. Everything was just so new now and happening so quickly that I barely had time to register everything. All that time was a haze really – a dream whose beauty I only realized when I was woken to the nightmare of reality.

The barrier between us lasted the first few weeks. We weren't _afraid _of each other: more like, _cautious_. I could see them watch me from the corners of their eyes, but it wasn't hostile – at least, not entirely so. I really didn't mind the space though. In those first few months, I was just too overwhelmed. I didn't know what these humans were saying, but their voices were loud, their tones cacophonous.

I eventually found myself trailing Yuuta-sama, the guji of the temple, our frail, green-eyed alpha. He spoke to me slowly, gently as a father would to a pup. I couldn't understand him of course, but I soon began to pick up certain names, certain phrases. He said 'miko' a lot when pointing at me, and soon the others began to call me 'Miko-chan' as well. When I realized that's what they had named me, I frowned and growled back "Mira." Azuumi-senpai dropped her chopsticks when I said that, and the whole dinner table stared at me. I hated the way they stared: I learned to keep quiet. Azuumi-san said she'd have thought I was shy if it wasn't for that _glint _in my eyes.

Though I had gotten my point across, 'Miko-chan' became a rather annoying nickname, especially when I finally began my training as a shrine priestess. In actuality, it was mostly teaching me how to be human: I already knew most of the legends of the kamigami from Ka-san and the gossiping of Fukurō-san and the yokai.

After settling into the rhythm of the shrine, Yuuta-sama took me into his pantry-turned-study – a nook just off the kitchen. There, I spent nearly all of my time with him for the first few months to learn the basics of the human language. After I achieved basic verbs and nouns, it was reduced to every morning and evening after our meals. I would always lumber into the study, my belly burgeoning after a hearty feast, my eyes already closing for sleep. However, he was always waiting for me and, with a quick tap on my head, he'd wake me and usher me into the seat across his desk. I rarely bared my fangs at him when he did this: his laughing eyes told me it was all in good humor. I would roll onto the cushions, sprawling my limbs as I attempted a weak human's smile.

He was always patient with me as he taught me to both read and speak Japanese. I'm sure it was a tiring process as my initial reaction to hard words was a frustrated snarl. However, he'd always manage to soothe me with that light tap on the head – his form of rebuke and encouragement. Soon, I learned the names of things: my paws were actually hands, my fur was hair, my fangs mere teeth. Eventually, I could finally ask my own questions.

"What is this?" I gurgled out, still slipping over the consonants. I shoved the book cover's image in front of him. I had picked it up from his desk – a heavily worn leather work that was handwritten.

He frowned, staring at the image of a fierce battle. "Ah, Hideyoshi-sama's work," he answered slowly, clearly. "He was a priest at this shrine when it was built." He took the work from my hands and flipped through the pages. "He was fascinated by the old legends and wrote them down here." He peered up at me from behind his thick reading glasses. "He was particularly fascinated by the Sage of the Six Paths," he answered, his eyes hardening to jade, his ever-present smile weakening beneath those silver whiskers. "Did Okami-sama ever tell you about him?"

I shook my head.

He gave a small 'hmm,' opened the book to a page, and handed it back to me. "Read the first passage aloud."

I chewed on a lip, glad that at least the author had a clear hand, and began to haltingly read from the top. "-hard to discover the truth about this figure. Though all legends agree that he saved humanity from the wrath of the Ten Tails – a creature some claimed to be chakra incarnate, or even the creator of the earth."

I stopped, squinting at the symbols to make sure I had read them right. I looked up at Yuuta-sama and asked, "Chakra?"

He nodded, watching me carefully. "That's correct."

"What's that?" I asked, glancing down at the word again.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Many have speculated about its true nature, but no theory has been accepted. Originally, most considered the power only to be that of legends – of the Tailed Beasts. The first human to mold chakra was said to be born with the power, though others have claimed that he must've been taught by someone." He toyed with his whiskers. "I suppose the answer is lost to time, but I believe that chakra is simply another name for 'musubi' – the power which resides both in the kamigami and humans."

I scratched at my nose, deciding that 'musubi' must be the human's name for the essence so innate, it needed none: the title of the universal threads that wove the fabric of existence. I sniffed, glancing down at the book, the other questions bubbling up. "What's Tailed Beasts? What's Ten Tails?"

Yuuta-sama rubbed his chin. "To be honest, we're travelling into the territory of the shinobi now, and those recluses obviously don't let this information spread outside their circles to folks such as myself. But from what I do understand, Tailed Beasts are beings of great power and great destruction. Some Shintoists believe that they are actually the most powerful of the kunitsukami."

_Kami of the earthly realm_? I turned over in my mind. _So they're like Ka-san? _I frowned, my lips pursing at that thought and all the questions it suddenly brought up, all the doubts it suddenly created. _Why could these Tailed Beasts roam freely while Ka-san and the other kamigami remained in places like the Ancient Wood? What makes them so special? _Shaking my head, I mumbled through my confusion, "And what's Ten Tails?"

Yuuta-sama gave a light roll of his shoulders. "That passage is the only time I've heard of it. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Creator of the earth," I mumbled to myself, reading it again as my brow furrowed. _But it can't be Izanagi-sama or Izanami-sama, the creation kamigami of the Kamiyonanayo. _I considered their sad tale and shook my head again. _No, no. If those stories are true, those kamigami have long since disappeared. _I considered the other possibilities for a moment – if this 'Ten Tails' could truly be a kami – and I cocked my head. _Maybe it's one of the other amatsukami – the kamigami of the heavenly realm._ _Though I doubt it. Such great kamigami would be living in the Upper Realms, Takama-ga-hara. _I wrinkled my nose, beginning to doubt the whole theory.

Yuuta-sama opened his mouth to explain further, but there was a soft knock on the door. Azuumi-senpai, opened it and stepped in. "Bath time!" she cheerily announced. I blanched and dove for the door, trying to escape before she nearly drowned me again. Her age surprised me again: for some reason, time had not stolen her reflexes. She gathered me in her soft, doughy arms – her age not sapping her strength either.

"Mira-chan," Yuuta-sama admonished, "there are other things to know besides books. We can talk more about this later."

I was pulled out of the room by the scruff of my neck, my feet squeaking as I tried to grip the floor. Now that I can look back, I give nearly all credit to Azuumi-senpai for taming me. She was the only one there whose determination – or rather _strictness _– could actually teach me to be human. I was used to the rigid formalities of a pack, but this woman was on a whole other level. While I had been able to get away with most of my tricks and pranks with the wolves, she always seemed to know what I was going to do before I even had the inkling to do it. "Don't even think about it," she'd say when she caught me eyeing the raked pile of leaves, the freshly baked bowls of rice, or the mud puddles after a morning rain. We'd stare at each other, a showdown that quirked our lips beneath glinting eyes - a showdown I usually lost in a tangle of flailing limbs, my guffawing, and her silent giggling.

I never asked her, but I had a feeling that her apparent clairvoyance was built upon a youth more devious than mine - a youth whose misdirection somehow led to this hard outer shell. I learned over time about her complicated role of pseudo-miko at the shrine: she performed the perfunctory ceremonies but, for reasons they seemed to embarrassed to discuss with me, she couldn't be a true priestess. However, she did have the childhood training and since she was the only female there, she had argued that I should be directly under her care – hence her tirade when I first arrived.

"You need to learn how to be a woman, too," she always commented as she rubbed my back raw in the bath. "Not just a miko."

I'd usually just grumble under my breath before trying – and failing – in a bolt for freedom.

Baths weren't the worst of it though. Living with her, she woke me up at the crack of dawn to start the morning's process. She'd admonish me for my eternally scratched and bruised skin, half-teasing half-chiding that she couldn't tell the difference between my tan skin and mud sometimes. She would rub some fragrant lotion over me, making me flinch at its coolness in a chilly morning while she professed that it would soften my weatherworn skin and protect me from the sun. I would always sit there as still as a rabbit under a hawk's hungry gaze. I had hoped by doing that she wouldn't catch onto my ultimate weakness, but my actions just ensured it.

"Why so stiff?" she asked as she wiped the excess off on her own forearms. Her lips quirked as I stood up, the pent-up sigh escaping my chest as my shoulders slumped in relief. Too relieved for awareness, I didn't catch her fingers darting to poke my side like Ashi-chan's playful nips.

I leapt into the air, yelping as my nerves sent electric tingles throughout my body. I landed on my toes, leaping back from her with a scowl as I ducked low, protecting my sides.

Her wide eyes only grew wider as a serpent's grin slid across her face. "You're ticklish?" she asked. "_You _are ticklish?" She raised her palms, her fingers wriggling as she approached me with slow steps.

The color drained from my face, and I sprinted out of our room, still unclothed. Her manic cackled followed me as I flew past Yori-senpai's stunned gaze and dove out the door. The cackling duo ended up having to coax me down from the tree outside, baiting me with promises of restraint and chocolate as Yuuta-sama and Akio-senpai laughed in the background. I kept a suspicious distance from Yori-senpai and Azuumi-senpai for weeks after, but eventually their ambushes died down.

I was still young enough then – or at least wild enough – to still slough off my clothes at any given opportunity. After that event, however, Azuumi-senpai had warned that would be the last time I'd run out of my room naked. "You have to be presentable in case anyone comes, Mira-chan," she'd coo, that grandmotherly smile a mask for the drill sergeant beneath. "Now here. Let's put these on."

She would help me into some of her old clothes she had expertly fixed to my size, yanking my limbs through the large holes of my uniform: a hakama with a white top and red bottoms. After tearing several into nearly irreparable states, she had forced me to learn how to sew them back together myself – threatening sugar deprivation if she caught me with a tear. After seeing that I then spent nearly all my time repairing them, she altered the outfits – making them stronger, tighter, easier to run around in.

I still didn't like them.

Yet the struggle of the faux-fur was only a taste of the worst human life had to offer. My daily torture came when she would take me to the mirror and rake a comb through matted, frizzy, sunbaked hair, always crooning "Such a beautiful golden auburn! Such a beautiful little girl! You'll grow up and break men's hearts!" She'd then prattle on about high cheekbones, dark brows, and heart-shaped face: naturally, I didn't really listen, let alone care. I would glare but manage to stifle the growl: Ka-san's and Hana-san's babying moments had taught me not to struggle. When she finished, my jaw was always aching from gritting my teeth so hard – I learned quickly that brushes meant pain.

After all that, the morning rituals took place: cleansing, adoration, offering and prayer. My initial homesickness had dampened any curiosity or enthusiasm, but eventually I actually became interested in what they were saying. They seemed to recognize the spirituality of the forest, calling it a 'shintai', showing a similar respect the kamigami showed to the Sapling: eventually, I just conflated the two in my mind. In their prayers, they beseeched the kamigami and asked for the usual benevolence and blessings. They seemed to recognize Ka-san as the chief spirit which I thought was a bit odd, but I never asked them why. My soul was too busy aching when they mentioned her name, and years later, I realized that not even time could dull it.

By the time morning prayer was over, I was ravenous. I'd just demolish the food Yori-senpai had made for breakfast. The priests called my eating style 'wolfing it down,' and despite their laughter about it, Azuumi-senpai deemed it improper. "Chew!" she'd always command. So I struggled there, starving myself to death as I could never just get those damn chopsticks to hold anything. When no one was looking, I usually stuffed handfuls of the plate into my mouth though Azuumi-senpai proved to be a worthy foe – more often than not, I was reprimanded with a sharp bop on the head or an electric jab below the ribs.

Despite struggling for every morsel of food, over time I noticed myself growing thicker, stronger with this new diet. I knew the others had noticed it too when Yori-senpai stopped joking that I looked like a bobblehead doll, though he never did explain what that was. Now, my chubby cheeks more or less matched the frame beneath it, and Azuumi-senpai could only remark that I looked "absolutely pinch-able with all that baby fat on me." When she approached me with those wrinkled pincers, I took it as my cue to sprint to the closest shelter whether it be under the table or a tree outside.

After breakfast were my usual language and religious lessons with Yuuta-sama with those being followed by an hour's mental break. I'd trot outside, head aching with knowledge, and clamber up the weeping willow by the pond. I'd settle in the heavy branch overhanging the water and just _be_. Sometimes I'd watch the koi fish lazily work their way through the currents, the wind-scattered reflections of the clouds drifting lazily over them. Other times, I'd settle back and read a book as my toes tapped the cool water, the leaves offering me shade, solitude and, when the wind rose, soft music as well.

If the lazy mood didn't strike me, I'd join Akio-senpai as he fixed up the building. I don't know how our friendship formed: I don't remember who sat next to who initially, though I suppose it must've been me since I couldn't really see him doing anything of the sort. Though withered with crow's feet and salty hair, he was the youngest of the adults. While he wasn't annoyed or frustrated in others' company, he kept to himself most of the time. I probably initially liked him so much because there was no need to struggle through Japanese with him. That didn't mean he never spoke: I learned a few words from him, generally when he stubbed a toe and shouted something like 'chikushō'.

I'd help him when I could – usually just handing him things – until he'd stop after a while, welcoming my company as a break from his work. Built like a bear, he was also as hairy as one with curly hair lining his chin, cheeks and arms. When working, he had to clip back his charcoal bangs, revealing a scar that traced its way from his shoulder to his ear. Though I was curious, I never asked him how he got it. In fact, I never asked him really anything. We didn't need any words in our simple companionship. I'd always just sit beside him and watch him hunch over and whittle away at a piece of wood, guessing what he was creating. Upon seeing my interest, he'd always toss me whatever he had finished: in my little corner of the room, I already had a collection of various animals and houses. He even had made a little me with wolf's ears and a tail.

Yori-senpai would then call us in for lunchtime where there was another installment of the eternal war with the chopsticks as the adults spoke of general matters. Initially, all the priests would do is ask me about the ancient wood, but they soon stopped upon realizing they were only worsening my homesickness. Besides, whatever I did tell them, I could see them having a hard time believing it. Only Yuuta-sama seemed to understand what I was saying as he bobbed his head at my words, a content smile brightening his frame, though Yori-senpai muttered something about 'senility' on occasion.

"So," Yori-senpai began once, rubbing his cheek, "the all-powerful kamigami hold meetings around a tiny sapling? That's what you're telling me?"

I had fallen back into my chair, growling out the muddled, "Well, you do same thing but you say it 'shintai'."

He began tapping his chin. "And so you're telling me that your Ka-san is an Amatsukami? Don't they only belong in Takamagahara? You know, the heavenly realm? Isn't their shtick to never walk on earth amongst mortals?"

"Careful," Azuumi-senpai hissed, snatching up his unfinished bowl of rice.

Yori-senpai puffed his lower lip out at her, his eyes growing wide, but his trick had no effect on the woman who'd seen better attempts from me. Letting out a sigh, he turned back to watch me scrunch my nose as I struggled with the grammar.

"Amatsukami have reasons, but they hard form on earth," I eked out. His eyes scrunched in confusion so I backtracked and clarified, "All kamigami need form like this." I pinched the flesh of arm and waved the limb in front of him. "It to be anything. Plant, animal, people. But need form because musubi weak here." My lips wrinkled in my scowl. "Much weaker. Kunitsukami okay. They kamigami that no need much musubi. No can go to Takamagahara for long time but learn to live here, but it hurt Amatsukami to be here. It hurt Amatsukami even in Ancient Wood that-"

Forgetting the word, I cast my eyes around looking for something to help me explain and snatched up my chopsticks. I pointed to the lower piece of wood and said, "Earth. Me and you and kunitsukami here." I pointed to the higher utensil. "Takamagahara with Amatuskami." I pointed to the gap between them. "Here. Ka-san here and no leave."

His eyes grew soft at that for some reason. "Why?" he said. "Why can't she leave?"

I puffed out my lip at that. "She choice. Izanagi-sama ask, and she say-" I paused again, growling to myself as I shoved the chopsticks back on the table. _What _was _that word? _My frown disintegrated as I hopped up from my chair and shouted, "Between!"

Azuumi-senpai appeared out of nowhere to cuff the top of my head, warning me that good ladies shouldn't scream as much as I did. I crossed my arms over my chest and plopped down into my chair, a proud smile only emerging when I saw Yori-senpai giving me muted applause and Yuuta-sama, who I thought had been asleep the whole time, murmured, "Very good, Mira-chan. You're improving faster than I'd hoped for."

What happened after lunch that day was typical of any other day. Yori-senpai would start crinkling the waxed paper in his pocket, the starting signal that brought Azuumi-senpai up short and send Akio-senpai and Yuuta-sama out the door. Their arguments differed every day but their foundations were the same. Yori-senpai said that gardening would give me exercise as well as teach me patience: Azuumi-senpai said that cleaning would teach me responsibility let alone exercise. Knowing I wasn't listening since neither choice bother me, they hoped their words would sway the other, but they never did. In the end, it was my choice and I always ended up choosing whoever offered the most chocolate.

Either option led to an afternoon filled with constant chattering. When I dusted the windows and washed the shrine's floors, Azuumi-senpai regaled me with stories of her past. I learned that when she was young, Azuumi-senpai lived in a town where she had originally trained to be a miko. It was a small place, she said, but it held more charm than any other town in the Land of Fire. Bewildered, I had asked her if the land outside the woods was really made of fire.

"No, no, dear," she answered after a throaty laugh. "That's just what our nation is called."

I looked at the ground, brow furrowed. She must've seen my expression as she quickly explained what a nation was, that there were other ones besides that of Fire, and who the Feudal Lords were. I pursed my lips, trying to imagine all she described to me: the thousands of people, the hot springs, the shops, and the restaurants.

"So," I began, my tongue thick and heavy, "bigger than shrine?"

She chuckled from her chest again. "The villages are _much_ bigger than here. There are only five of us here after all." Her eyes got that misty far-off look as she paused in her work. "I always wanted to live in one of those huge places. Live there and become a star. As I got older, I tried to live that dream, you see? I had gone there to make it as an actress but-" She looked at me with a pitiful smile. "Some things just don't work out the way you want them to. Before I knew it, I'd lost myself and became something I never wanted to be." She looked at the floor, her neck flushing.

I stopped working and watched her turn her gaze to the floor, her whole face red. "I had a baby girl," she whispered. "She'd have been an adult now, probably even have her own child. She had auburn hair too." She crossed her arms over her chest but startled herself at her own touch. She shook her head and bent back over the table.

"Well, I had to leave after all _that_. I knew I wouldn't be accepted in my hometown, so I wound up here. I had heard stories about this place when I was little and training as a priestess." She gave a toothy grin, mischief glinting in watery eyes above scarlet cheeks. She looked away from me then, a soft cough resetting her throat. "Even if I can't be a proper miko anymore, it feels like I've come home. I do what I can but-" She gave me a smile. "It's nice to be able to honor the kamigami properly now."

Outside, taking up a section of the soft, green grass was the robust garden where Yori-senpai grew all of the shrine's food: various berries, legumes, lettuces, and others whose names I don't know. This is where he usually employed me, saying that if I came from the forest, I must have a green thumb.

Despite being so gaunt, he really knew his way around food – a fact he credited to his childhood fascination with botany and all things outdoors. He reminded me of a field mouse; too big ears popped out of his pale brown hair whose strands reached down to big, dark eyes. His nose even had a little bit of an upturned point to it. The biggest similarity though was that he was small for a human; though he still loomed over me, he was a bit shorter than even Azuumi-senpai and the hulking bear that was Akio-senpai could've easily used his head as an armrest, though he would never act that cruel. Jokingly, Yori-senpai had once compared his arms to mine, remarking that mine were bigger though they really were about the same thickness. As if to make up for the physical weakness, he was the most vocal creature I had ever met – always chatting, always laughing.

Naturally, I was curious as to how something like him came to be. Once, when planting seeds for him, I asked him where he had come from.

"Oh?" he murmured, curling the sound in that tickling way of his. He straightened his skinny frame and leaned against his rake. "Miko-chan spoke for once?"

I glared at him, yet found it hard to snarl something back at his pale and sickly figure. "Just wondering," I muttered, returning my attention to pruning the plants.

"Wondering? About me?" He cupped his chin and stared off into the distance, puffing out his chest. "I feel so honored that someone like yourself is even curious about little old me." He deflated and jabbed a finger at me. "I'll tell you this. If you answer that, I will too."

I scowled at him. "What? Where I from?"

He gave a sharp nod, his pale yellow hair limply bouncing at the motion.

I frowned, thinking it was rather obvious. "Forest."

He rolled his eyes, groaning like how Teru-kun snored. "I mean, how'd you get into the forest? Who were your parents?"

I bared my fangs. "Ka-san," I growled.

His brows lifted, and he raised his hands in surrender. "Calm down, Okami-chan," he cajoled, using my other nickname – the one I liked better. "I was just wondering if she found you or, I don't know, you've just always existed or something."

I sheathed my fangs and straightened up. My brow furrowed and my cheeks puffed out. "Well," I admitted, "Ka-san said she found me."

"Really?" He pounced and jabbered at me with a flurry of questions that I wasn't quick enough to understand. He slowed down seeing me tilt my head – a subconscious giveaway that said I didn't understand. "I mean where did she find you?"

"Sapling – er, shintai," I answered, tossing hair from my face. "She found me when it blossom."

He was silent for a moment, probably debating whether to continue his jabs or be serious for once. He wiped the sweat off his brow and gave a low whistle. "Well," he began, "I guess it's my turn, Miko-chan." He gave me a wolfish grin and taunted, "My story is much more interesting since I came from no place interesting at all. A mining town back off in the hills. I was one of those kids who was born sick and never seemed to get better. Everyone thought I'd die before long, but they were wrong." He shrugged and began to till the ground again.

_Short story,_ I nipped, ripping off infected leaves.

It was years later that I gathered it, piecing it together from offhand comments he made or were made about him. He was a sickly kid, and being a sickly kid, his parents saved for years in order to send him to a proper doctor. When they finally had the money, they sent him off to be cured. He got there, and the doctor turned out to be a fake, swindling him for most of the money. A common thing, I had gathered, since people were desperate during wartime after all. He had walked home, barely making it, only to realize that his town had been decimated by disease; his parents had passed a few days before he had gotten back. It was bad air from the mines, those that were left said. They had to board up the place. Young, alone and depressed, he left his hometown and began to wander, only to wind up at the place that "all wanderers seem to go."

"Anyway," he had once commented, sitting up from his work to survey the shrine. "I do think there's something in the air up here. It's nice to breathe without having to cough."

Of course, I never asked him if any of this was true. I had come to realize that with humans, some things were best left untouched. Besides, the perpetually jovial Yori-senpai rarely gave me a chance to ask questions. He was always telling me about the outside world, adding on to Azuumi-senpai's stories.

He had put a hand over his mouth once and leaned towards me as we were uprooting some vegetables for dinner. "I passed the Hidden Leaf Village once." He gave a knowing nod. "I was stopped by three shinobi who questioned me and sent me on my merry way. With this war and all, I'm amazed they just let me off like that. I'd always wanted to meet a shinobi, but that's not the safest ambition at the moment."

My face scrunched in confusion. "Villages are big. How can be hidden too?"

Yori-senpai fixed me with that pale, cunning stare and bust out laughing. "What? No one ever told you the fantastic tales of the Hidden Villages? Towns where shinobi are born and raised? Where people can breathe fire and shake the earth?"

I gave a low growl. "I do that."

I turned from him and focused upon the root's tendrils. I had been practicing since I had come to the shrine. During evening prayer, while everyone else meditated, I had been prying the fabric of existence. I was only ever able to do small things – like pull air to make a barely perceptible breeze or fiddle with the moss growing in the floorboard's slats. And these I could only do one at a time. I, who danced with light while soaring upon the currents of air, grew incredibly frustrated. Yet that gave me ambition which drove me to regain my original skill, despite the added weight of existence.

_Until I can control lightning again_, I asserted, setting a goal for myself. Even in the other realm, those erratic, bashing, clashing, fraying strings of white hot energy were essentially undisciplined. I didn't have an affinity for lighting since it was essentially a cousin to fire anyway so, of course, I nearly killed myself. It was on a dare by a tengu: the yokai had annoyed me, its bulbous nose bouncing up and down as he prattled on and on about how even humans could do it. I didn't believe him, but I wasn't about to be taunted like that. The idiot I was, I reached out to the volatile musubi above. Those threads battered through me, hammering on my own strings, as if the thunder kami, Susanoo-no-Mikoto, was clobbering me himself. When I had woken up, the beak-like nose of my challenger hovered above me, the quip, "Cleared up your sinuses, eh?" already parting from his skinny lips.

I shuddered at that memory and glanced suspiciously up at the sky. _No wonder rituals use it to lift possessions_.

"Well?" Yori-senpai pressed beside me.

I sniffed at him and turned back to the task at hand. I stared at those root's tendrils, and, after a few moments, watched them grow and twist under my gaze. I sniffed, trying to stop the nosebleed, as I wove the last strands together, forming a green rose. I looked up at Yori-senpai with a proud smirk on my face. I was met with a mystified, almost horrified stare.

My smile broke, and I lowered my head. I plucked the flower, tossed it to him and went back to my duties.

He shook his head, regaining his voice. "Here," he announced and tossed me a piece of chocolate. "An offering to a shinobi."

I snatched the treat and ravaged it, my mood lightening in an instant. As I nibbled it delectable corners, I set to wondering. He had piqued my fascination. _There were others like me?_ I thought. _These shinobi?_

That night, I wandered into Yuuta-sama's study. It wasn't unusual for me: usually during the wolf's hour, I'd return from the wolf pack and wind my way into his little nook. In those first few nights, I had wandered in bored curiosity – being the only child there, I found myself often alone as the others fell fast asleep, age having sapped their energy. Unable to find much mischief around the shrine, I continued my exploration and wound my way into the musty, cramped library.

I was surprised to find that the room was drenched in twilight rather than night, the resultant efforts of the candles placed throughout the room. A shadow draped oddly over a corner, and I jolted back in surprise to find Yuuta-sama there, defying his yawns. He gave me a wan smile, motioning me forward as he cast his gaze around. His shriveled hand finally reaching out for a tattered, thin book that he plucked from the shelf and slid towards me on the desk. With nothing better to do, I had taken it.

They were picture books at first, aimed at helping a youth learn vocabulary, but soon I graduated on to legitimate works: the fantastical tales of the young samurai Ryuk or the star-crossed romance of Fuu and Juro. My interest in literature grew voracious, and soon I would only retire to bed when urged by Yuuta-sama. This urging usually took the form of a sugary bribe from a store he kept hidden in his desk: apparently, Yuuta-sama had brought a "lifetime supply of chocolate" when he first came here.

"He should've brought toilet paper," Yori-senpai had muttered, but I was too busy licking the last of the chocolate off my hands to ask him what he was talking about.

The night after Yori-senpai told me about Hidden Villages, I clunked out announcing steps as I entered. As usual, Yuuta-sama was up, too distracted by his studies to listen to his body. He greeted me with a warm smile as I slunk past the trunks of books piled on the floor. I hopped up into my cushioned seat and yawned, "Book of shinobi?"

The gūji gave me a quizzical look, but made no comment. He tapped his desk for a moment before wobbling up from his chair. Bobbing his head, he began his hunched shuffle over to a pile of books towering precariously beside the desk. With a practiced deft yank, he snatched a bundle of pages from the center, steadying the pile with his left hand. He handed the batch of crinkled and torn papers to me. I looked down at the top sheet and had to squint at the scrawled '_The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi' _with the smaller word 'Draft' beneath it followed by a string of crossed out numbers that eventually ended with a '5'_._

I heard Yuuta-sama murmuring on about it being a "manuscript" from someone he met during his travels. "A bona fide shinobi," he asserted, tapping his fingers against the grain of his desk. "Let me read his newest version of the story, and since I liked it so much, he gave me his old work." His fingers stopped as his eyes squinted behind his glasses. "I wonder if he's figured out how to end it."

Too pleased to pay attention, I sat down and curled up, already lifting the cover page. The first paragraph was written in a nasty scribble with multiple words crossed out, circled, or adjusted in the margins. Still, I was hooked: it was a nice change to the preachy tomes with which I'd been dealing.

Before I could begin to read, Yuuta-sama stopped me. "Mira-chan," he murmured.

I lifted my gaze to him, curious as to the sudden gravity in his tone.

He caught me in his green gaze and motioned towards the book. "Why are you interested in the shinobi?"

I paused, nose scrunched in thought. I would always get the verbs wrong in this kind of sentence. Slowly, I stuttered out, "B-because they are l-like me." I thought the sentence once over in my mind and grinned that I had said it right.

Yuuta-sama sat back in his seat and interlocked his fingers, tapping his thumbs against one another. "I wouldn't say that." He settled his frame back into the seat's cushions. He tilted his head as he stared at me. I returned the gesture by tilting my head the other way. He gave a light laugh – sounding more like a wheeze – and his mood lightening considerably. His smile returned to lift the deep wrinkles in his cheeks.

"You're a smart girl, Mira-chan," he commented. "Too smart. If we didn't give you enough work, you'd be going around making mischief." He raised his eyebrows and winked at me. "I think items in our storage shed would start going missing again."

I blanched but tried to pass it off with a watery grin.

He brushed it off with another wheezing chortle and tossed me a piece of chocolate. Stuffing it into my mouth, I let it melt as I looked down at the book and began to read.


	6. Chapter 6

Shink.

Shink.

Shink.

The boy stood there, the wan moonlight melting over him like butter over steel. He was sweeping the blade along the whetstone in sure, smooth strokes, and the tantō purred as it slid over the oiled rock. Though his eyes were trained to the sheen of metal, his movements were detached – the practice now so engrained he could gauge his progress by sound alone. Now the sweet timber of a bell was filling the room – the trilling of a weapon already finely honed – but he continued, grinding its edge to an ever finer point.

As the metal heated further in his hands, his mind remained cold, only allowing the briefings and stratagems behind the new mission flicker past. It would be an infiltration again. Nothing new. He'd done similar jobs before – sabotages behind the enemies' front lines. He had plenty of experience over these few years; however, those had been with other teams – other hindrances. His new teammates, on the other hand-

His mask warmed as he let out a steady breath. They'd done better than he'd predicted. He knew they wouldn't have failed – not with Konoha's Yellow Flash as their captain – but he'd assumed that Obito would've bungled it all somehow. Yet despite a few mistakes here and there, the mission had gone well – well, enough that they'd already earned another job after three day's rest.

This time it would be a string of supply depots. Whose? He knew, but he didn't particularly care to remember right then. All that mattered was the intel that the guards' chakra affinities were mostly wind. That meant he'd have to hold back on lightning techniques. Pity. He'd wanted to test out the new jutsu on which he'd been working.

Shi-IINK.

The boy stopped and lifted the tantō, turning it in his grip to check for any damage. Only someone familiar with the blade would note the wrinkled lines beneath the smooth veneer of steel – the markings of repair. He eyed the new subtle blotch near the hilt and again had to commend the old bladesmith, Kano, for her skill.

"Again?" the wrinkled crone had muttered as her knobbed talons snatched the cracked weapon from him. Pity softened her eyes as she cradled the tantō and shook her head. She didn't even look at him – too entranced by the legend resting in a broken heap against her chest.

"You should be more careful, Kakashi-kun," she had chided. "The White Light Chakra Saber is finicky enough as it is being so old without you doing your best to break it every day. One day I might not be able to fix it! If that day comes, it better be because I'm too arthritic to do anything and _not _because you shattered the last of Shuichi-sama's work beyond repair."

Kakashi had made some excuse or another as he dipped his chin only to do the same when he went to pick it up two days ago. There was still pity in Kano's eyes as she placed the tantō in his hands, but that time it wasn't for the weapon.

_It's that time of year again, _he grouched, shoving the tantō a bit more harshly then he'd intended back on the whetstone. _Another good reason for a mission._

With the anniversary approaching like a rattling cobra, he wanted to be on the move again, needed to be absorbed in another mission. It was what he was trained to do. He was good at it – excellent even. The prodigy. The genius. He was making a reputation for himself, and he deserved every bit of it. But the older generations like Kano's couldn't seem to forget the other genius of the Hatake clan. His legend had been so great – His failure so catastrophic – that even years later they still mentioned His name in curdled tones of awe and disgust.

Whether it was luck or his sensei's unseen tugging of backstage strings, this job would take a few months. They would be heading deep into enemy territory to strike the critical arteries of the advancing troops, and while the actual raids would only take a few nights, the covert traveling would steal the bulk of their time. This strategy required a patience and skill he doubted all his teammates possessed, but he'd pick up any extra slack as long as it meant he could avoid the furtive murmurs.

It had gotten worse these past two years. As Kakashi strove to make his own name, the elders compared them more and more, bobbing their chins like chickens as they proclaimed they were growing more similar each day. From his abilities to even his looks, Kakashi couldn't escape His shadow. It was like he was still a boy plodding along in his father's footsteps, unable to tear himself away from that shameful path of which he wanted no part.

Kakashi lifted the tantō to check its balance again, unable to help his glowering as the prickling along his neck renewed. It was as if they had started watching him again – the stupid flowers lying on his windowsill. He had been walking back from Kano's shop when he'd seen them stretching out of their bucket, their petals yawning in the morning. He bought two of the discounted bundles – the demand of a strange impulse that died immediately after he handed the ryō over.

He had hefted the weeds, blaming both his idiocy for being swayed by a bargain and his training with that so-engrained-as-to-be-instinct shinobi's rule to be "prepared before it is too late". Knowing he'd miss the day in the course of his mission, tradition dictated that he should make his offerings before he left. He did – for his mother at least. Though he had no memories of her, he honored her by cleaning her grave and leaving one of the bouquets. The other had remained on his windowsill these past two days – the white flowers still blooming despite being left to rot in the sun. The other grave was-

There was a sudden flash as the moonlight caught the tantō's tilted edge. Though only a shadow of the famed white streak, Kakashi's pupils widened and he slammed the weapon onto table. He pivoted on a heel and walked away, letting out a breath.

He shook his head and refocused himself on more important things. S_o no lightning then, _he repeated as he strode towards a set of drawers. He stopped and began rummaging through the drawers, keeping his gaze from the mirror while fixing the hold the mask held over his face. _Well, I haven't used fire techniques seriously for a while with the Uchiha so behind. _A scowl tugged his mask low. _It'll be good to get better practice, so which ones need work? _

He outfitted himself outfitting himself with shuriken, kunai, and other tools he would need in the mission to comeas he listed the jutsu he knew. He noted a few that he'd need to refresh as they travelled, but otherwise felt satisfied that he knew a wide enough range to handle himself. He looked to his desk, checking the clock skipping on towards three in the morning. _Should get going soon, _he thought as he secured the last of the tools. He cinched the straps tight against his chest and turned back to the table, tugging the braces onto his forearms.

As he moved, his attention pricked towards the street. _This early? _Intuition already whispered the answer to him as he differentiated the footsteps: the soft, staccato of a civilian's heels nearly drowned out the already quiet, steady stride of a shinobi. He resumed his preparations but couldn't help hearing the end of the lovers' date.

"Tomorrow?" the woman tried to keep her voice even, but even an Academy novice would be able to pick out the hidden strain. "So soon? But you just got back."

"It'll just be a few weeks," the man assured her, his voice low and confident. It was the latter quality that gave his lie away: no one could predict what happened in war. She didn't seem to care: she snatched at anything she could.

"Do you know where you're going?" she murmured – the quaver finally breaking through.

"To the ANBU's headquarters," he joked, his tone trying to poke and deflate her unease.

She didn't laugh.

"I'm not allowed to say," he murmured. "You know that. I'll be back soon though."

She giggled – a weak thing too late to be convincing. She latched onto his earlier teasing and poked, "For a shinobi, you're a terrible liar. I've known all this time you were part of the ANBU. You thought leaving your shuriken in the washing machine would throw me off? Or jumping onto the couch when you saw a rat in the room?"

He laughed, and she joined in as their steps carried them further from his apartment. The last thing Kakashi heard of them was the woman's soft, "Just come home when you can, okay? I love you. And I think the rat does too."

At her last words, Kakashi rolled his eyes but couldn't help the crinkling of his nose at an emotion he left unacknowledged. He stretched his arms, twisting his back this way and that to test his gear. Satisfied, he snatched the tantō off the table without another glance and slid it into its sheath. He began to leave, glancing around the room to ensure he had forgotten nothing: the microwave was unplugged, the dishwasher empty, and the fridge cleaned out.

Nodding, he turned to the door only to see the shadow of the bouquet. The streetlamps outside painted its delicate outline with the gray hues of shadow, blocking his exit with their mural along his wall. Grumbling under his breath, he strode back in and snatched the flowers. Their spines snapped in his grip as he turned to leave again. He waved a hand over his shoulder, murmuring a goodbye with only the refrigerator's hum sending him off.

He made his way onto the street and threw out the flowers at first trashcan he found.

Despite wearing a thicker mask for the mountains, a winter wind roused and nibbled at his neck. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he wound through the alleyways and backstreets, opting for the less-peopled route though it was longer. Normally even this late in the night, he'd hear the warbling men stumbling home from a bar or the gossiping of women. Perhaps there'd even be an Academy student or two cramming for an upcoming test. Tonight, the only people he sensed moving in Konoha were ranks of guards – most lacking experience in true battle, others injured from too much.

Though the Village had been at war for as long as he could remember, these past few months had felt different. The war seemed to have sharpened recently, and there was a strange stillness about the streets – probably a result of the stricter rationing. The air itself seemed to hover about, the wind flitting from window to window, fretting just as much as the mothers, lovers, or children who paced their hallways or tossed in their beds.

He turned a corner, only to be greeted with a chirped, "Morning, Kakashi-kun!"

He straightened up, surprised that Rin had beaten him to their meeting location: usually her parents drowned her with hugs and kisses, stalling her before she set foot outside. Though her cheeriness was a bit dulled by the early hour, she still managed to smile at him. A few seconds later, her crinkled cheeks fell a bit as she must have sensed his mood, but she didn't look away. Instead, her brow gathered, her eyes brightening as worry awakened her further.

Kakashi rolled his eyes at her pity. _Great_, he muttered in his mind, crossing his arms over his chest. He turned away from her and looked to their captain. Minato welcomed him with a measured smile – a testing of the waters: he of all people knew what this time of year meant. Kakashi dipped his chin, knowing that motion would stave off his sensei's questions.

Sure enough, Minato turned away, his face just scrunching as he murmured, "Now, where's Obito-kun?"

**0000000000000**

**A/N: Hello my lovely readers, both new and old! This is the first of the "vignettes" (wrong term, I know but just how I'll refer to them) that I promised in the newest chapter update. Firstly, I wrote this as a bit of an extra treat for my dedicated readers who have been so supportive and encouraging despite how strange this story is! Secondly, I know many felt daunted and/or uninterested in the story because of the long delay for canon characters, so I thought about what to do, and I actually got really excited to write these little snippets out and to insert them into earlier bits of the story. I feel like they'll build up the tension for their real introduction later on when they meet the OCs. Either way, hope you enjoyed this bonus chapter! I definitely enjoyed writing it (especially the hinting of Kakashi's predilection for 'romance' – laying those foundations for Icha Icha later on [I hope you caught onto that!])! **

**As always, ConCrit and/or general feels encouraged!**


	7. Chapter 7

"I've figured it out!" Yori-senpai announced, mixing the thick paste. "Miko-chan is actually a shinobi come to spy on us! All those howls last night? That was just her communicating in secret code!"

I stared at Yori-senpai, confused. Not at what he had asked me but at that patchy, blonde stubble beneath that thin nose – the irrefutable defeat in a week's bet to not shave against Akio-senpai. It poorly sculpted his thin face and made his pale skin look ashy. The light made it look even worse from my higher angle; he stood on spindly legs a good head-and-shoulders above me, and the light made the scruff seem a nonthreatening blonde. I tilted my head, trying to see if a new perspective would improve things.

It didn't.

Yori-senpai continued his theory, continuing the joke he had begun when first learning about my obsession. "Light on her feet," he described, scratching his so-called beard. "Never seen her fall or trip or anything. She can smell and hear everything. I suppose shinobi can do that as well."

"Combative too," Azuumi-senpai threw in as she carefully coated a tile and handed it up to me. "If we know anything about the shinobi, they sure love their wars."

"I mean when we first saw her, she looked completely feral," Yori-senpai commented, rubbing sweat from his glistening scalp. He waggled a skinny finger at me, eyes glinting with his teasing mirth. "You walked up to us on all fours, butt-naked."

I stifled my growl at their laughter but felt a small flicker of pride. A wolf was always supposed to be intimidating.

"You looked like you were about to call the rest of the pack and kill us," Azuumi-senpai agreed, wiping another tile with the paste and handing it up to me. "But what I remember the most is the smell! Woo-eeh!" She swiped the air in front of her nose.

I wrinkled my nose in distaste at their renewed laughter. "You should smell yourselves sometime," I retorted, folding my arms across my chest. "My nose is never going to be the same again."

Azuumi-senpai folded her arms against her chest. "I just remember being so surprised that Yuuta-sama was right in the end." She shook her head, her black hair bouncing. "I thought he had finally fallen off the deep-end that night." She looked at me and Yori-senpai did the same. "I mean, who would've thought that the wolf-girl he always talked about was real?"

I shrugged their comments off and placed the last tile. Below me, Yori-senpai threw his hands up in the air, a huge smile collapsing his cheeks with large dimples. "Finished!"

I looked down at them as I hunched over on the roof, eyes squinting from the reflection of the pond. The three of us had been repairing the storage shed for the week. We had patched up the door, repaired the walls, and were now working on the roof. I was the one saddled up on the structure – the only one light enough not to make the whole thing collapse.

I slid to the edge of the roof and hopped off, landing softly on my toes.

"See?" Yori-senpai exclaimed. "Shinobi!"

I made no response. I only feigned annoyance because it was _him_, but secretly I enjoyed the fantasy of being a shinobi. All the things they did, all the places they traveled – I could barely even conceive of such things from my life hemmed in by these woods.

"Perfect!" added Azuumi-senpai, wiping her hands on a rag. "Just in time for practice,"

I froze, a rabbit caught in the open.

"Aw, come on, Miko-chan!" Yori-senpai cajoled, dropping his hands upon my shoulders. "Practice can't be worse than it was the other day!"

I snarled at him, ripping out of his grip and launching into a sprint.

"Mira-chan," Azuumi-senpai barked. "You have to practice!"

I skidded to a halt, my head lowering. I turned back to her, working a pained and pitiful expression on my face.

"No good," she growled. "The ritual takes place tomorrow evening. You're doing the kagura. Why else would we have been practicing?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, grumbling to myself. Meanwhile, Yori-senpai was looking around. His gaze fell upon Akio-senpai who was carving out a new patch of ground for the garden, and a smile lit up his face. "Akio-san!" he called.

The black head looked up.

"Come on!" Yori-senpai summoned, waving his hand. "You're going to miss the show!"

I glared at Yori-senpai, shutting my jaw with a sharp snap.

"Oh, don't mind that fool," Azuumi-senpai said, giving her own glare at the blonde child. "You're doing much better than before." She began to scoot me away, patting off the dust on my clothes while she did so.

She guided me beneath the red-posted gate, past the dandelion-filled meadow, and into the haiden. Set in the back of the shrine, the haiden was a roofed structure whose walls could be opened so that the whole meadow and the surrounding peaks could be viewed. It was here where we gathered to pray to the kamigami and offer them gifts. Though the floor was empty and immaculately clean, the roof was the most ornate of it all. Upon the oiled wood was etched the exact scene that we looked out upon; the meadow that seemed lost to time with the same mountain peaks in the background, the ever-present dandelions and lilies, the constant immobile ranks of the forest's wooden battalions.

It was here that my torture was occurring ever since I had gotten to the shrine.

I looked unsteadily down at my feet. "Can't I do this later?" I yowled. "I'm supposed to hunt today. The pack hasn't eaten in a week and a half."

"You can do that after," she tutted, grabbing the yamatogoto from its shelf. "This will be quick. You just have to learn the last few steps before the festival tomorrow." She sat down, placing the stringed instrument in front of her. The patter of footsteps announced the arrival of the eager crowd. Yori-senpai and Akio-senpai settled in the corner, Yori-senpai nudging the other, trying to get him to bet. Azuumi-senpai harshly hissed at them silencing them. They fidgeted in their spots, ready for the show.

I glowered at them and refused to move, even when Azuuim-senpai began to play the first chords. She chattered at me like a furious squirrel, but I paid no attention. "I swear," she muttered. She groaned and turned to Yori-senpai. "A bit of help?"

He grinned and slipped a tab of chocolate out of his pocket. He took a bite of it himself and tossed it to Azuumi-senpai. She grimaced as she caught it, holding it gingerly in her hand before placing it on her knee. "_That _will be yours if you learn the rest of the dance."

My mouth began to water, my stomach growled. _I hate you,_ I snarled at my addiction while glaring at Yori-senpai. _How does he always have sweets? _

Azuumi-senpai shook her head and placed her fingers on the instrument. "All right! Here we go! 1-2-3!" She began to play again, and I aped out the movements, eternally conscious of my audience's gaze.

I stumbled through the more difficult turns and had to restart the whole ritual about four times. Two of the reasons was because I had nearly fallen off the edge of the haiden. Slipping once again, I came to a stop, panting and sweating in the heavy clothes. "Useless!" I snarled as the two priests tried to muffle their laughter.

"You're getting much better!" Azuumi-senpai tried to force, her frozen expression saying otherwise.

I rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth. "Wolves don't dance. We howl."

"Can you sing?" she posed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"No!" Yori-senpai gasped. "Don't let her do that! She can't carry a tune if her life depended on it!"

I would've shoved him with a gust of air, but Akio-senpai punched him in the arm for me. I nodded a thanks at him, and he blinked in response.

"Ow," Yori-senpai muttered, rubbing his bicep. "Don't punish a guy for honesty."

I winced as Azuumi-senpai banged out a discordant chord. "All right," she growled. "A couple more times, and then you can go."

As I waved my hands through the air like a maniac, I couldn't help but even debate the point of this ritual. Grimacing, I knew the kamigami would probably like this: they liked any offering as it stroked their ego. Still, I didn't see how any human could have originally decided that these weird gestures would have pleased the kamigami.

I came to a halt as the Azuumi-senpai strummed the last notes. She forced a smile onto her features, turning her face into a frightening mask. "All right," she capitulated, "we can be done for the day. Next time, just try not to look like you're about to kill someone." She slid the chocolate over to me. "Your prize." She folded her hands on top of her instrument. "Well, have fun… _hunting_." She grimaced. "Just try and not get your clothes too messy."

Gulping down the chocolate, I nodded and leapt off the haiden, glaring at my audience as I passed. They laughed and waved at me as I sprinted off towards the temple gate and the woods beyond.

Turning my nose to the sun, I let out a howl. My shrill voice faded into the distance before deep booming howls echoed back, answering my call. I tore into the forest, dropping onto all fours and not caring that my uniform shredded as it caught onto brambles. I could tell that I had grown taller in these past few years. I could actually see over most of the grass now though my limbs were a bit uncomfortable walking in this quadrupedal gait.

I scrambled up the crest I had descended so long ago only for the earth to start quaking. The next thing I knew, three wolves burst out of the woods and descended upon me nipping, yelping and howling. Gone was the awkward cloddishness of their teenage years. All wasted space and too large limbs had been replaced by the prime of adolescence. Muscle had grown in, coats had thickened, fangs and claws had sharpened.

'_Ready, Mira? Ready?'_ Ashi-chan poked me with her wet nose. I grinned up at her, having to crane back my neck. She had lost her gawkiness, growing into a quick and lithe figure more than capable of bringing down an elk by herself. Her white fur had smoothed into a glistening marble, and her yellow eyes were bright with energy.

'_Of course!' _I shouted back at her, hopping from foot to foot. '_How're we going to do this? It's just us this time right?'_

Utau-kun nudged from the back. '_Don't need to bother anyone with a job we can do ourselves.' _I whirled around on him, latching onto his nose. He shook me off with a chortle. I peered up at him, grinning at his russet figure. His chestnut eyes beamed down at me, his creamy ears flicking this way and that.

'_How's Hana-san?' _I asked.

'_Good. She's due soon.' _I twisted around, backing up a few steps to take in Teru-kun. He had grown huge – he now towered over even Kizuato-san. His fur had turned even a pitcher shade of black, his eyes piercing stars. A pink tongue lolled out of his mouth as he cocked an ear at me. '_You don't smell too good, little flea.'_

I snarled at him but knew he was right. I pawed at the ground, scratching up the forest's scents, and began to roll around in it. I knew Azuumi-san would kill me if she knew, but this was wolf's business. I stood up, shaking my hair. _Better?_

Ashi-chan sniffed me. '_Perfect. Let's get going. The herds will start moving soon.'_

Tails twitched in agreement, and Teru-kun dipped his head down to me. '_Get on, little flea. We need to be quick.'_

'_I can keep up,' _I grouched, leaping up onto his withers. I settled there, grabbing onto his fur.

'_Don't kid yourself,' _he answered. He lifted his nose to the air, latching onto the scent. He turned towards the others. '_Let's move.'_

My jaw clashed together at the sudden explosion of movement. I berated myself for being unprepared but settled into the coursing of his stride. We burst through the underbrush, moving along invisible trails as we slid through the woods. Our path carved around the edge of the mountain, past streams and lakes that dotted the land. The trees and bushes flew by in a blur. The wind snapped at my hair. Yet all I could do was restrain myself from throwing my hands into the air and holler.

We stopped, reaching the huge expanse of meadow where the huge herd of sika deer had gathered. We crouched low and took in the situation. Despite our boasting, we all knew the danger here. Even the female deer were easily double a wolf's height while the male bucks easily tripled the weight in pure muscle. We had to be smart about this; if they ganged up on the four of us, at best we'd go home just empty-handed.

But if there was any time to hunt, it would be now. The air was thick with hormones, and the deer were all distracted by each other. The bucks appraised each other while the does pranced about. I could hear their simpering mewling from here as they paced around, munching on the grass.

'_The chokepoint will be here,' _Teru-kun asserted, drawing our attention to him. His tone had deepened, his words chosen with more care. He trotted over to the tree and leapt onto the trunk. '_Mira-chan, you know what to do.'_

I growled in assent and climbed to the tip of his nose, jumping off to land in the lower branches of the tree. I appraised the selection of branches before me before tearing the stiffest looking one out.

Teru-kun turned towards the others. '_Utau, you take the left wing. Ashi, take the right.' _They panted in assent, disappearing into the woods. Teru-kun watched them going, giving a small whine.

'_It'll be fine,' _I called down to him. '_We know what we're doing.'_

He lowered his head and shook, ridding himself of his nerves. '_All right. Let's begin.' _He slipped into the underbrush.

I waited, watching the deer mull around, chewing on stalks of grass and completely unsuspecting. I had full confidence in our endeavor; we had been taught well.

Ashi-chan acted first. On the side with the excitable does, she burst from the grass, having slipped undetected to twenty feet from them. The does bounded away, inciting panic into the whole group of them. We needed that panic to make our whole operation work.

My sister charged into the herd, cleaving it into two. The bucks stamped around for a moment, but their youth betrayed them; they too began to gallop away. I could see her scanning the crowd, looking for the weakest group. She swerved left, away from me, quartering the main group.

Utau-kun then burst from his spot, having pinpointed the weakest of Ashi-chan's selection. He charged forward, forcing the deer to skid to a halt and reverse direction back into my sister's path. She snapped at one, her teeth grazing its chest chest.

The deer bucked, nearly crippling Utau-kun with a hoof. He managed to dodge it, dipping under the limb and even attempting a bite at it. And with that, they had selected. They continued to chase after the group, dividing it until only that injured one was left. They forced her to turn, swinging her in my direction.

I opened my mouth, took in a deep breath, and ground my teeth into the branch. Wolves usually ran out their prey, but the sika deer could run faster and longer than all of us, especially in the woods; while we had to muscle our way through the underbrush, the deer could just charge through. That was where my part came in all of this.

The deer approached, and time slowed down as adrenaline kicked in. The deer was four bounds away.

Three.

Two.

One.

I dropped from my branch. I fell onto the charging doe and felt the breath explode out of my chest as I collided with its forehead. It began to wildly swing its head, grunting viciously. However, I locked my claws into its fur and hung on as it tried to throw me off. I didn't think about what would happen if it managed to; with the force it could fling me with, I wouldn't have a long time to think about it before I smashed into something either.

The deer careened through the underbrush as I tried to keep my grip on it. Leaves and twigs slammed into my back, always jarring my motions and clanking my joints together. I wasn't able to fully regain my breath, but it didn't matter. I had to act quickly. I tangled my right hand into its coat and released my left grip. With my left hand free, I tore the branch out of my mouth, raised my fist and then slammed it into its left eye.

The doe reared, flailing its legs and bellowing. I could hear Ashi-chan and Teru-kun take advantage of the pause, but the deer exploded into another charge with renewed energy. This time, its stumbling path was directed to the right, that being the direction it could best see.

"Chikushō!"I snarled, feeling my grip beginning to loosen as my muscles gave out. I buried my left hand into its hair, letting my right arm free. Stinging with pain and almost limp, I could barely raise it. '_Now, Teru-kun!' _I howled, banging my fist against into its sticky eye.

It reared again, beginning to buck. I lost my grip and was flung into the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Teru-kun burst from the bushes, hitting the deer's side with all of his force. I began to fall, and the world went dark around me.

Dark and sticky and hot.

I groaned, knowing what had happened.

'_I saved your life,'_ Utau-kun grumbled a few minutes later, his tail flicking. '_You should be grateful.'_

'_You nearly swallowed me!'_ I snarled back, wiping more of his saliva off my face.

'_Well, a death by the might Utau would've been honorable.' _He leaned over and re-soaked my body with an especially wet slurp.

I glared up at him, flicking the excess off my dripping wrists. '_Thanks,' _I muttered.

The rest of the hunt had been finished quickly. Teru-kun led the blessing to Okami-sama for the success of the hunt and a prayer to Shika-sama for the gift of life that was the doe. From these series of howls, the rest of the pack was alerted to our victory and soon they gathered with us, spouting congratulations. Hana-san, heavy with pups, swayed out of the woods last with Kizuato-san.

We now laid about, drowsy with our fully stomachs as night washed over us. Hana-chan chimed, _'What was that you said, Mira-chan? That human word?' _She attempted her best vocalization but it came off as a pup-like whine. She flicked her tail impatiently as the brother snickered and continued,_ 'What did it mean?'_

I blinked, feeling a blush creep up my neck. I had always been so careful to keep the divide between my two lives. Scratching my neck, I replied_ 'It's a bad word for them.'_

'_What does it mean?'_ Teru-kun joined, licking his paw.

'_Shit,'_ I answered.

Utau-kun's ear twitched. _'That's a bad word?'_

I shrugged. _'Azuumi-senpai always gets mad when we say it. Not as bad, but I suppose it's like calling someone a 'dog'.'_

All three of them bared their teeth at that. I shrugged and turned back to absentmindedly toying with the grass in front of me, trying to manipulate its musubi. I was attempting to determine where the priests might have hidden a stash of chocolate again. I'd found a few despite my wrecked sense of smell, and over time I learned to only take a few tabs so that they wouldn't move them again. However, I had been looking for them for a few weeks now, but I hadn't accomplished anything.

_Maybe the roof? _I considered.

A gust of wind washed over me as Kizuato-san settled next to me. He nuzzled me, nipping my hair playfully, and for a moment I forgot those four years – forgot the shrine – and felt like a pup again. Officially, I was an adult in the pack now if not in the human's world. His gravelly words hammered that in. '_Are they treating you well Mira-sama?'_

'_Mhmm,' _I yipped with a toss of my hair. I grinned up at him. '_They're strange, but I like them. They've been teaching me a lot.' _I cocked my head. '_I still can't believe they're so weak though.'_

Kizuato-san chortled at my side. '_You have changed, little one. Picked up their mannerisms. You're even walking like them now.'_

He stared up at the heavens. It was a cloudless night, and stars shimmered above us like the sun's rays breaking upon waves in a lake. Yet, despite their untouchable beauty, they were merely subject to the true majesty of the skies. As we stared upon her realm, the eternal moon stared right back.

'_Tsukiyomi-no-mikoto is bright tonight,' _Kizuato-san murmured. '_New moons bring new scents.' _

He looked down his snout at me and shoved me with a paw. Sensing his intent, I gave a happy yip in agreement. He lifted his nose to the air and began to howl, honoring the great night kami. Kizuato-san's notes were deep, resonating within my very bones. Hana-san's mellifluous notes joined in, and soon the entire pack began to sing. I joined in with my own feeble voice, singing a haunting melody that human words could never do justice.

My own soul began to ache as the mournful tune cried for a homeward journey that could never take place. Memories of Ka-san flickered in my mind, and I couldn't help that my voice gave out as my throat grew sore. Our song poured over the mountain range, and as our tune ended, we could hear our notes echo back. Though I knew it was a trick of the wind, but I pretended I could hear Ka-san howl back to us in those echoes.

The moon was nearing its peak when I returned to the shrine, Kizuato-san at my side. Yawning, I stretched my arms in an attempt to get rid of the worst of the ache in my shoulders. They still stung a little when I moved them: I must have messed up some muscles. I grimaced, knowing that Azuumi-senpai wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I used that as an excuse to not dance.

_Azuumi-senpai! _I jerked at the realization, I groaned as I stared down at my uniform. It was tattered and crusted with saliva and dirt. I'd have to spend a good amount of time tomorrow patching it up.

'_Anything wrong, Mira-sama?' _the alpha asked.

I shook my head. '_Something only humans would care about.'_

He nodded and came to a standstill at the edge of the woods. We said our goodbyes, and he nuzzled me before disappearing back into the underbrush. I watched him go before turning back to the shrine.

I shuffled up to the red gates, too tired to realize that Akio-senpai had been standing there the whole time. I jolted when he moved from the shadows into the patch of moonlight, and I gave him a low growl. However, he wasn't looking at me: he was looking to where Kizuato-san had disappeared.

A low whistle escaped between his lips, and he shook his head. He looked down at me, his usually matte eyes now flickering.

A giddiness rose up in me, and I let it escape with a grin. His gaze focused upon my teeth, and that deepness left his expression. He turned away and began to walk back into the shrine's grounds. Confused, I scratched at my teeth with a finger, thinking that something had caught between my teeth. When I pulled it away, I realized they were still red from the hunt. Frowning, I wiped them off with a clean part of my sleeve, removing the worst of the dirt as well.

I hurried after him, straightening up onto two feet, and entered the temple.


	8. Chapter 8

Akio-senpai held the kitchen door open for me, and I hopped inside. I shuffled to the dying fire and huddled there, hoarding its heat into my stiff muscles. I narrowed my eyes at the weak flames, a perverse little leer twitching my lips.

I heard the door scrape and click behind me, and I looked back to see that Akio-senpai had entered and closed the door. He nodded at me and jerked his chin to Yuuta-sama's nook. I glanced at the alpha's doorway, seeing candlelight still flicker out of it. Giving myself one last shake in front of the fire, I walked into the room.

I blinked, adjusting to the dim light, and found Yuuta-sama pouring over works on his desk. I slunk over to my seat and hopped up onto the cushion. I sat there and watched him scan one book before shoving it away to read a few lines of a scroll just beneath it. He was using his finger to trace his path – an action he only did when he was serious.

I kept quiet, glancing around at a room more disorganized than usual. A dozen works had been piled in the center of the room, forming a precarious little mound from which I lifted the topmost scroll. I glanced down at the title, squinting at its old-fashioned scrawl.

_The Kagura. _I nibbled on my lip and peered up at Yuuta-sama. _Is this what he's been researching? _I scanned the writing but was unable to make out most of the old-fashioned words. Grumbling, I placed it back on its pile and waited.

After he scratched out a few notes, Yuuta-sama looked up and greeted me with a wan smile. "How are you, Mira-chan? How was the hunt?"

"We'll have food for a week," I announced, giving a toothy smile.

"And Hana-san? You said she was pregnant?"

I nodded. "The pups will be here before the next quarter moon." I settled back into my throne and stretched my legs, my smile turning softer. "They asked if I could mentor them."

Yuuta-sama gave a heartier smile. "I suppose that is quite an honor?"

I beamed at him. "Well, it'll balance out by how annoying the pup brothers and sisters will be, but at least I won't be the smallest anymore."

A wheezy chortle shook his shoulders as he shuffled a few pieces of paper before him. He stamped them down onto the desk, straightening them, and plopped them onto a corner. He interlocked his fingers and began to tap his thumbs.

I waited for him to speak first: Akio-senpai wouldn't have told me to come in if it wasn't something serious.

"Mira-chan," Yuuta-sama began, "I'm thinking that I shouldn't let you perform the kagura tomorrow."

I bounded to my feet, yipping and howling, only to be jarred to a groan as my shoulders clenched with pain. I hunched over and slid back into my chair, nursing my muscles.

Yuuta-sama merely stared with wide eyes. "You don't like it that much?"

I nodded with a grimace, rubbing a muscle that must be at least partially torn. "It's stupid," I grouched. "I can't do any of the steps right."

He murmured to himself, shuffling through his pages to read something. He frowned but seemed to not be too disturbed. He put the papers down and peered up at me from behind those thick lenses. "Mira-chan, can I ask you why you think you're here? At the shrine, I mean."

I cocked my head at him, my focus stolen by his reticent tone. With a frown, I had to considered my answer, trying to form the words Ka-san had told me so long ago. "To learn to be human," I answered, "so I can remind man of the kamigami."

He pursed his lips, giving a weak nod. "I suppose that could be the gist of it."

He leaned back in his own seat, placing his withered hands on his lap. His lenses flared as the candlelight caught them, making me unable to see his eyes, but I knew his gaze had grown hazy with memories.

"When I was a boy," he began, a hoarseness creeping into his throat, "I had listened to all the old legends and believed in them. With the wars going on, there wasn't much else I could do. After my village was destroyed, I decided to go and find them. I visited libraries first, and I learned how to decode those old cryptic tongues. That option drying out, I moved onto shrines and temples to only realize that most had been abandoned with only a few priests left in others. I questioned the priests, and they gave me answers. Somewhere along the way I decided to become a priest myself."

He shook his head with a little chortle. "I never thought that would've happened." A small smile buoyed the wrinkles on his cheeks. "I traveled and helped victims of the war. That's how I found Akio-san." A dark shadow past over his face, but it vanished as he continued, "I took him with me to chase down the ancient legends no one believed anymore. Of a forest at the edge of the mortal world where kamigami still roamed."

He stopped then, breaking out of his reverie. "But it wasn't my work alone that brought me here. No. I was guided by a kami." He shifted in his seat and fixed me with a jade eye. "Yourmother, I've come to believe. Okami-sama, guardian of these woods."

My heart thumped.

He settled back against his thin cushion. "The shrine was abandoned when I arrived, but I knew why I had been called. Still able to move these old joints around, I began to fix the worst of the damage with Akio-san's help. We kept finding scrolls lying about. They were from the priests before the temple was abandoned, however long ago that was."

He motioned to the works lying on his desk. "We gathered them, and I worked out their messages. The old priests seemed to be a pretty secretive lot. They left instructions, talking about the proper rituals and festivals." He nodded at me. "They mentioned Okami-sama as well, and her duty as guardian over the forest and the Sapling you've told me about." His brow furrowed as he glanced down at the scrolls again. "There is still a lot I've been trying to figure out though. There's this constant mentioning of the Fruit and the ancient anger and redemption, and then there's this strange passage where-"

He stopped his speech and shook his head. "Well, there I go again. Getting lost in the details." He pointed a gnarled finger at me. "The point, Mira-chan, is that I have a habit of believing in old stories, and with the stories I've been reading-" He motioned to the table. "I don't think you're ready to handle the ritual."

The competitive part of my soul flickered. _Not ready? I don't want to do the dance because it's stupid, not because I can't do it. _I frowned at him, my brow furrowing but not saying anything.

Yuuta-sama easily read my emotions. With a sigh, he started his explanation with a question. "What is the kagura?"

"A dance to honor the kami our shrine is dedicated to," I quickly answered having had Azuumi-senpai grill this into me.

"And what is the miko leading the ritual said to do?" he pressed.

I blinked at him, confused. Slowly, I began again, "To hono-"

He shook his head, his glasses falling to the tip of his nose. "She invokes the kami of the shrine," he corrected, shoving his lenses back into their proper place. "Dancing the kagura acts as a channel, so to speak, uniting the realms of kami and man. If done correctly, the kami is said to become present in our world. If chosen, it is said that the miko can communicate with the kami or even become the kami's vessel on earth."

I looked at the floor, playing his words over in my mind. I understood them, but I couldn't believe them. I felt my chest grow hot. _Ka-san?_

"Yet the sources I've been reading," he continued, "warn that if the miko isn't ready, if she isn't able to complete the ritual-" He trailed off, but lifted up a heavy, thick scroll. "A lot of things started making sense when you came to the shrine. The things you've mentioned about the kamigami have really helped me in understanding a lot of this. I've been reading all this back over, but it's been pretty hard." He peered down at his desk, tracing over the works strewn before him. "They mention something about this shrine's miko having to be in control over _it_, but they don't mention what _it _is. It doesn't help that a lot of the scrolls have faded or torn."

'_There is no reason to fear,' _I heard her rumble deep within the memories of my soul. '_We will see each other again, though not in this way.'_

I looked up at Yuuta-sama who had returned to frantically shuffling through his paper. "Ka-san told me about this," I announced, emotion sheering my voice. "She _told _me we'd be able to see each other again!"

I hopped out of my chair and grabbed Yuuta-sama's desk. His eyes were wide as he stared at me, scroll in his hand. "Okami-sama told you?"

I banged my head up and down, my hair flying everywhere. "I can see her again! This is what she must've been talking about!" I backed up a few steps and began to pace, my steps matching my racing heart as I ignored the lancing pain in my shoulder. I stopped and whirled on Yuuta-sama. "I'm doing it," I snarled. "I'm doing the kagura tomorrow."

Yuuta-sama leaned back, his mouth forming words but nothing coming out. But I knew he wouldn't say no. His eyes were just too bright with curiosity. His hands curled into one another as he leaned forward, a smile on his face. "Well, I guess tomorrow evening I get to finally see the legends come true."


	9. Chapter 9

Azuumi-senpai moaned as I nudged her awake. "Is something wrong?" she murmured, blinking as the first rays of sunlight began to peek into the room. She took in my figure with a gasp and sat up. "What happened to you?"

I tilted my head and looked down at myself. Granted, I hadn't really washed up since the hunt, and I had just spent hours sweating as I practice the kagura, but I didn't think I looked too terrible. I returned her horrified look with a happy pant, "Practice!"

She began to jab my body, hitting all the worse spots she could. She dug her talons into my shoulders, and hissed, "It looks like someone tried to rip you in half."

"It was a doe," I grumbled, wincing as I slid out of her grip. "And it just tried to rip my arms off, but it's fine. I can do the ritual."

"A doe?" Her voice rose as if she was about to enter a song, but the thunderous look on her face whispered doom. "You think you're going to be around for another year if you keep doing this to yourself?" She shook her head, her nose scrunching with disdain. "And you smell like an outhouse. We need to get you cleaned up, then it's an early breakfast, and then more practice."

I yipped in agreement and scampered into the bathroom. An hour and a half of tedious cleaning, bandaging, mending and combing later, I found myself kneeling down in the empty hall of haiden. Azuumi-senpai absentmindedly strummed a few notes as a pleased smile tempered her features. "You've improved," she commented.

I grinned up at her, but kept the comment 'that's what a night of practicing does'to myself.

"All right, I think you'll be able to pull it off now," she announced, getting to her feet. "Remember though, you'll be carrying the kagura suzu bells during the actual ritual." She patted down the pleats of her own hakama and looked about the hall. "We'll have to cleanse it now and prepare for the ritual." She reached down into her pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. She waved it in front of me. "I wrote down all the steps we need to do. Yuuta-sama's added his own bits here and there, saying that their specific to this shrine." She shook her head with a light laugh. "That old codger is always so buried in those scrolls, I'm amazed he hasn't gone cross-eyed."

Giggling, I twirled over to her and leapt, yanking the paper from her hands. I glanced at the directions. _Rice, sake, evergreen branches, salt, candles. Seems simple enough. _I dashed off to collect all the items as Azuumi-senpai went to go get the rags to start cleaning.

Everything was set up by late afternoon. The sun had already disappeared behind the white peaks, and the haiden had grown dark. Azuumi-senpai, dressed in her finest outfit, tutted as she lit the taller candles with a large match. "It's a strange time to be doing this ritual, but Yuuta-sama was insistent."

I didn't answer, grinning. I snatched a sliver of flame from one of the lit wicks, holding it in my palm, and began to light the candles I could reach. I had to be careful not to ignite my own clothes; Azuumi-senpai had insisted that I wear the traditional, loose garb as I readied the shrine. Angling my body awkwardly, I leaned out to light the last candle in the back; I was stupid enough to leave it for last.

Azuumi-senpai glanced over at me. "Well, you seem to be rather chipper about the ritual now. I didn't want to ask before, thinking you'd come to your senses, but what's gotten you so happy?"

"Ka-san," I answered, feeling like a flock of birds bursting into the air.

"Ka-san?" she murmured as I hopped around the haiden. "Careful!" she shouted after to me. "Don't trip! You're already hurt enough as it is. We don't want you to sprain your ankle!"

I simply laughed her off as I continued leaping for the ceiling.

"Sheesh," Yori-senpai's voice came in from behind us, "and people were saying that you weren't a kid."

I whirled on him, falling into a low, two-footed crouch, and circled behind him.

He had turned to Azuumi-senpai. "You know I don't really know much of this stuff, not being a real priest and all, but I just wanted to see if you needed any help? I saw you had Akio-san bundling some of the branches, and since he is whatever-he-is-that's-not-a-priest-either, it seems to me that I wouldn't be ruining the ritual either if I pitched in."

I pounced at his last word, wrapping my arms around his neck, using my momentum to swing around him and pull him after me. I thought nothing of it as I felt him crumple: I had always done this with the pups as we tussled. I let go giggling as I rolled onto the floor, looking back just in time to see him catch himself – hard – on a palm. I realized my mistake when haggard coughs began raking out of his throat – the motions so vicious it left spittle sputtering from his lips.

I approached a hand outstretched when-

"Mira!" Azuumi-senpai snarled, all joy vanished from his voice.

I ducked back, confused by the fear in her tone. I glanced at her furious gaze only to turn back to Yori-senpai who hadn't stopped coughing – his actions looking more like retching. He began to clutch at his chest, his face whitening to the shade of bone.

"Yori?" "Senpai?" came Azuumi-senpai's and my voice at the same time.

He waved us off with good humor but wouldn't stop hacking. "It's fine," he sputtered out, backing off the haiden. "G-good one. I- help- Akio-"

"Sorry, senpai," I murmured, ducking my head to the floor.

He began wheezing, but it sounded like an improvement from his hacking. He waved off my remorse once more, and turned in the direction of the garden, banging his chest to get his lungs working again as he held his lower back with the other.

"Mira," snapped Azuumi-senpai when he was out of earshot.

I turned towards her, head still lowered. She grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yanked me out of the haiden and into the meadow.

"You have to learn to control yourself!" she thundered. "We're not all used to brawling and fighting like you. We aren't wolves here, most of all not Yori-san!" Her arms slammed against her chest. "Not only that, you chose to act like that _there? _This is a sacred space to worship the kamigami! They have just seen what you did! If this were any other shrine, we'd have kicked you out in disgrace!"

She lifted her palms, some of the bruised ingredients I had tossed aside in the Haiden crumpled there. She gingerly lifted the cracked and leaking bottle of sake. "Other than seriously hurting Yori-san, you threw these to the floor! Don't you respect the kamigami?" she bit. "You didn't even want to do the kagura initially! You don't understand the seriousness of your role! You think having been raised with the kamigami gives you total immunity?"

She shook her head, strands of her hair loosening from her bun. "You've got a lot to learn! You aren't mature enough to handle this! I'm going to Yuuta-sama right now and telling him I'll just make another offering this year! You'll just sit and watch and then afterwards, we'll figure out what to do with you!"

I'd have turned belly up at this point if she had known what that meant. Instead, I did what she would understand; I prostrated myself before her, my forehead grinding into the dirt. "I'm sorry, Azuumi-senpai!" I squeezed out. "Please! I didn't mean to hurt him or insult the kamigami!"

She straightened up, glaring down at me from her thundercloud. She wasn't appeased.

I stared into the dark ground, hot pins growing at the corner of my eyes. My voice grew raspy. "It's just I'm so excited. I was going to see Ka-san today. I j-just-" My fingers raked back to form fists. "I just miss her!"

"I know," came a softer voice, wrath broken. I peeked up at her, and saw that she had twisted her face from me. She peeked down at me, and her shoulders slumped, pity filling her eyes. "You cry in your sleep a lot."

Still, she turned away again. Beneath her pursed lips, I still knew her teeth were grinding. With an exasperated sigh, she shoved back her hair. "I know what you must be feeling, but I just don't think you're ready for this. The kagura is one of the most important rituals of the year and is a miko's sacred duty. If you make a mistake, you insult the kami of this shrine."

Protests formed in my throat, but I kept my mouth shut. I even silenced the thin whine crawling along the roof of my mouth.

Her arms tightened across her chest. "Maybe…" She froze and looked at me, eyes simmering. "I'm not going to keep you from your mom, _but-_" She raised three fingers into the air. "You have to promise me three things."

I lifted myself up onto my elbows, fervently nodding.

"First, you _can never _act that way inside the haiden again."

"I won't."

A finger dropped. "Second, you must go apologize to Yori-senpai _immediately_ after our conversation is over."

I nodded, already scrambling to my feet.

Only the last finger was left standing. "Thirdly, you _cannot _complain as I ready you for the ritual tonight."

I kept the grimace from my face as I bowed again and again, thanking her for her generosity. With a light frown, she held up two fingers. In a moment, I had dashed to the garden and began profusely apologizing to a healed Yori-senpai who simply laughed the whole matter off.

"It's not like you killed me!" he dismissed.


	10. Chapter 10

"Azuumi-senpai, have you ever seen a kami during a ritual?"

I cracked an eye at her, keeping the other one closed as she polished it with a black liquid. Staying true to my word, I hadn't complained as she coated my face in paint, doused me with fragrance, and stuffed me into an even more unwieldy outfit for the ritual.

"No," she murmured back, her pupils sharp with focus on her task. She lifted the brush and twisted my chin this way and that, appraising her work. "I was never blessed by the kami in that sense. There's only been a handful of miko who've truly spoken with them, but not one for many years." She caught my gaze's downward shift and added, "But I doubt even they were the daughter of a kami. I'm sure she will speak to you." She tilted my face to the right. "Now close your eyes again."

I did and sat there in the dark, my muscles quaking. I rehearsed the steps in my mind, twisting my free hands to the rhythm. A nervous excitement had flooded through me yet that might have been a natural response to the ribbon constricting my ribcage.

Azuumi-senpai poked my stomach. "You'll be fine. You didn't make a single mistake this morning, and during the ritual it always seems to come naturally."

I jerked my chin in ascent, but she merely hissed. "Tsk, Mira-chan, you nearly made me blacken your forehead."

It was twenty minutes later when we stepped out onto the grounds. The moon was just beginning to crest the mountain peaks, its gaze falling upon the valley. It illuminated the temple's grounds with its soft light, turning everything to muted shades of grey. There wasn't even a breeze to break the stillness that had settled upon the shrine; as I walked, I even felt that I had to push aside the air itself to get to the haiden.

We stopped before the structure, and Azuumi-senpai turned me towards her. She tucked back some loose strands of hair and corrected my posture; shoulders back and down, chest up and out, stomach in, hips straight. She let out a breath, giving me a nod. "It's time," she whispered with a smile. She leaned over and pecked my forehead. "Good luck, Mira-chan."

She straightened up, adorning an air of regality that I could only achieve in my dreams. All emotion was wiped from her face only for her to somehow create an aura of sublime contentment. She slid open the door before us and entered first.

I waited as she took her place beside the door, settling the instrument before her. The other priests had already gathered in the candlelit room, sitting one on each wall. Yuuta-sama was directly before me, his frail figure more reminiscent of an ancient oak than a withered stem in this moonlight. He sat to the side of the offerings, the kagura suzu resting in his palms. Akio-senpai was kneeling on my left, mouth open as he took slow deep breaths. Yori-senpai rested on my right, no mirth upon his sealed lips. Both had their heads slightly bowed, bodies rigid, waiting.

_They will be your komainu_, I remembered Azuumi-senpai's explanations. _They will guard you from any evil. _

I took a deep breath as Azuumi-senpai played the first few frail notes, signaling the start of the ceremony.

_You are a wolf, _I told myself. _You are the daughter of Okami-sama. _

I lifted my chin and stared straight ahead as I stepped into the haiden. My hakama hissed as it trailed behind me, the only sound in the night. My stride was slow, steady; with each step, I let my momentum roll over me like a wave, letting it prompt my next step.

I stopped before Yuuta-sama, lowering into a kneel to accept the sacred bells from him. I kept my eyes lowered, but I knew his eyes were upon me. There was a pause – a slight hesitation – before he returned my bow with a lowering of his head. He lifted the kagura suzu and placed it in my palms. I bowed once more and rose onto two, steady feet.

Azuumi-senpai struck another chord behind me, and the kagura was begun.

_Limbs straight. Movements sure. Arms steady. Hands roll here._ The bells tinkled._ Turn to the south. Dip. _These were the thoughts that raced through my mind through a dance that was supposed to be effortless. At least, it should appear so.

Azuumi-senpai continued to strum through the first section of the music, the prelude she had called it. I continued to sway, growing more and more conscious of the fact that nothing was happening. I kept my face clean of emotion, but I nearly tripped on a turn. _Focus, _I snapped at myself. _Twist. Raise the right hand. Lower the left. Turn. Raise the leg. _

My hands began to tickle as they grew sweaty, the kagura suzu proving heavier than I had realized. I kept my gaze forward and swayed to the tune as my palms began to itch. It was only when they began to ache that I realized something was happening.

Excitement flared in my stomach as I broke tradition and snuck a glance down at my fingertips. I didn't see anything – just sweaty palms and those golden bells – but I swear I could feel something. It was heavy and sharp, like nails clawing at my skin or icy waters tearing at my nerves.

My mind froze. I recognized that feeling. I shook myself out of my realization, grateful to realize that somehow, muscle memory had kicked in and kept me moving.

Testing my theory out, I put a thought into my next step – a gentle mental prodding as I flicked my wrist. The kagura suzu jingled, but its noise couldn't mask the rash gust of wind that blew through the haiden. The candles were extinguished, cloaking us in a dark that even the moonlight couldn't penetrate.

I was in the cave. If I turned my head – if I lost this focus – I'd return to the haiden. But before me was the dark.

_Ka-san_.

I didn't hear if Azuumi-senpai kept playing; I didn't care. I was dimly aware that I continued the kagura, imbuing each movement with a thought, a force. But below that, within my mind's mind, I was entering the cave. I could feel those cosmic tendrils latch onto my skin, actually _feel _them. With every movement I made, they shivered, fluttered, echoed.

I became the Dark. I was in control. For the first time since I had left the ancient wood, I could bend these forces as easily as I could breathe. The kagura had shaken off the weight of reality. I could feel existence wash over me, past me, as if I were a stone in a river. As I settled within my consciousness, I whispered, '_Ka-san?'_

A voice wasn't what answered back. In this place, there was no such thing as a voice. No such thing as a form. How it answered me, I can't explain. All I knew was that it felt like my very soul was being crushed – my very existence being taken from this world. Those tendrils turned on me, gouged into me, tightening, suffocating, yanking and dragging.

I clawed at the energy, tried to control it, distort it, direct it, but it was impossible; there was something else there, something else controlling the threads. And it was suffocating me with them. I was falling deeper into the fabric of eternity. There was no way out. I was lost. I was dying. I was nothing. I was everything.

It felt like something seared into the back of my neck, ripping past the skin and tearing into my spine. I yelped and tried to pull away, but I had no power here. Primal pain – that inner agony which makes one wince as they see another ripped to shreds – filled my existence. Whatever it was snapped even more viciously into my neck, and I could feel my soul compacting, smashing into itself to form something semi-solid. I could sense myself in that chaos now, actually be able to define my edges.

I had been torn from the Darkness, but I hadn't returned to the light. Sensing a foreigner, the raging Pitch began to snap around my form, encircling me, crouching, readying itself to erase the outsider.

I was rocking on the precipice of insanity.

No, I was hanging above it. And something holding me there like an eagle raking its talons into a flea.

'_You.' _The message exploded within me, cracking my spirit. The entity lifted me higher, and I dangled there before its essence. I had no idea what it was, but I knew what it wasn't. This wasn't Ka-san. This was something else. Something terrifying. Something nightmares were born from.

Yuuta-sama had once asked me what it was like to look at a kami. I didn't answer him. Not that night at least. It had taken a few days; I tried to find the right descriptions, the right verbs, only to realize that it was the human language lacking, not me. I figured out the best metaphor for it as I sat in my branch above the pond, dipping my toe into its cold depths, and watching ripples be born.

"It's like trying to find a reflection in breaking water," I had told him. "It's hard at first. You squint. You can't focus. You get a headache. But eventually, your eyes get used to it and you start to see something. A reflection of what's actually there, but still something."

That's what I had said, and I thought I was right. I wish I had been too. Now, I knew that I had been staring at my fantasies for too long; I had begun to think that _that's _how the kamigami really looked, how they really were. I realized my mistake now. As I dangled there, I was looking up, away from the reflection and at the real thing. Freeing myself from a fantasy, I was torn apart by the reality.

This was the true form of a kami.

'_You_,' it shattered again. The being held me there, keeping the gnashing Pitch at bay, keeping me above the abyss of madness. '_You are not ready.'_

It let go.


	11. Chapter 11

"Mira-chan," Yuuta-sama had asked, pausing in his lecture, "do you have a soul?"

I frowned at him, hesitant to answer. I could see by the glint in his eyes that this was a trick question; he always loved asking me those. When he raised a brow at me, I snapped out, "Yes."

He grinned, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but you don't have one."

My lips began to curl into a snarl, when he continued, "You actually have four!"

I sat back in my seat, defenses crumbling. "Four?" I scrunched my nose, trying to imagine that.

He bobbed his head, his wrinkled jowls bouncing in time. "Yes! Yes! All humans do. Humans and kamigami that is. Some say that that's proof humans are divine themselves, or at least have some sort of divine lineage."

I chewed on the inner corner of my cheek, searching for any memory – be it from Ka-san or from a book – that had even mentioned the idea. I furrowed my brow, a name becoming clearer. "A matimi?" the words tumbled out.

He chortled, waving a hand. "Its 'mitama' actually. That's the idea. You see-" He pulled out a paper already nearly blackened with notes. He drew four circles, all of which intersected each other at the central point. "There are four souls," he explained, tapping the individual shapes. "The ara-mitama, the nigi-mitama, the saki-mitama, and the kushi-mitama. These four are separate aspects of the souls which maintain a balance within the person – or kami – and create his overarching spirit." His pencil tapped the central intersection.

I leaned forward in my chair, inspecting the drawing. I gave a nod and leaned back. "So what are they?"

His brow crinkled and he tapped his pencil, the lead leaving dots on the paper. "Well, to simplify it." He pointed to the top circle, the one he had called 'ara-mitama'. "The, uh, _raw _nature of the spirit. Violent and brutal, it acts mostly out of aggression and passion." He dropped to the circle on the bottom. "Its opposite is the nigi-mitama. Calm, peaceful, practical. We worship the kami in order to draw this personality out, though we still might catch it in a bad mood."

He stopped and gave a light chortle. "You know?" He tapped his fingers. "I was just thinking. Azuumi-senpai's the functional one of this place. She'd be the nigi-mitama. So that'd make Ak-"

"The other two?" I prodded, stopping him from going astray.

He checked himself. "Ah, yes. Well, the saki-mitama is the providing soul – the blessing and generous aspect. However, this generosity is accomplished by the kushi-mitama." He tapped his pen on the circle on the right. "The kushi-mitama is known as the wondrous soul – a supernatural force. It's the _how _behind all those purported miracles of the kamigami. However, some say that humans just call it by a different name these days." He leaned forward, his eyes searing. "Chakra."

He folded his hands on his desk, the same fire in his eyes. "So, Mira-chan, do you have a soul?"

_Do I have a soul? _The question echoed with my fibers as I fell and kept falling. Seconds stretched to eons as I saw those memories flash before me. And below me were the gaping maws of the Pitch, seething in a maelstrom below me. I drifted towards them, a feather torn from the wing of existence, incapable of flying away. I knew they were leaping for me now, dripping fangs bared, a foot from my substance. An inch. A centimeter.

_Will I have a soul?_

Agony itself shredded my spirit. That raw, primal torture one can only realize in nightmares. Every instinct told me to claw open my being, to expose and gouge out the nerves exploding in pain. The Pitch was cauterizing every inch of my spirit, trying to heal the void I made in this place. It was raking back my being, one layer at a time, clawing towards a victory that meant my dissolution. I didn't belong here. Not any part of me. In this place, I wasn't meant to exist.

Panic took over. The panic that solely instinct drives. An instinct who solely seeks escape. It was like my mind burst and kept bursting, reaching out for anything and everything it could find. I raked non-reality, feeling hundreds, thousands, millions of those cosmic strings straining between my thoughts. I wrenched them towards me, tearing them from their bindings, not caring that some of the tendrils snapped in my grip, dying with a blinding flare – the only thing I half-recognized in my dementia.

Sparking and crackling, the bundle of reality grew heavy and frantic within my thoughts. They began to snap at one another, tremors erupting from them as they tried to break from my grip. I felt my control over them crumbling, their vibrancy searing through my being, yet I didn't care. Crushing them with another thought, I faced the tempest as a primordial knowledge filled me.

Clutching the fabric of reality, I slashed the Pitch. Like a whip, the threads cracked through the tempest, leaving deep, ragged gouges of pale light in the writhing nothingness. The strands sparked and fractured – their fragility fully exposed – and splinters piercing my essence as the rest ceased to exist. I felt them enter me – those chips of broken existence. For a moment, I was filled with eternity – an eternity filled with every moment of every life. That's when the convulsions overtook me – convulsions which paralyzed a soul and began to shatter its very core.

The Pitch seethed around me, snapping yet cowering back. Yet their presence began to fade – not that they were no longer there, I- I just couldn't- focus.

My consciousness was shattering, buckling under the weight of omniscience. Everything had become so clear that it all began to blur together – to become one ultimate truth made everything dissolve in its presence. Everything. Even me.

My thoughts became hazy emotions. Those emotions became apathy. Apathy to ignorance. I felt nothing, was nothing. If I had been able to understand, I would have returned its sweet embrace and welcomed the nothingness like an old friend – the oldest friend all people share really.

I began to drift away, the Truth a current which bore me to bliss.

'_Mira!' _The thought blasted itself through my mind, an explosion within paradise. I grew vaguely aware that my shattered visage was being dragged, sensations growing clear as ignorance retook me in its sharp claws. The Truth began to fade, and all that was left was crippling loss.

'_Mira!' _The voice came again.

Something stirred within me. A fleeting spark.

'_MIRA!' _It thundered.

The spark caught something, igniting a simmering flame. Yet no recognition came to me – I was still too lost.

'_Mira,' _commanded the voice, '_I've got you. You're free now. I've pulled you from the current.'_

The voice's fear bounced off of me, but I was too far gone for caring. I just wanted to let go, to drift to sleep.

'_You have to focus!' _it snapped. '_Focus and return to yourself! Focus and… the plane… return… body.'_

The voice began to fade as I slipped away. It was just so much sweeter where I was going. The pain was where the voice was.

It was howling now in the distance. Its thoughts were snarled at me but didn't reach me. '_Someone… outside… pull you… back._'

Its presence grew around me as if it was calling out to something. The voice was no longer directed at me though. It finally stopped pestering me. I could sleep now. I could be free. I could-

A great roar exploded around me as infinity's edge came rushing towards me, constricting me. The voice's entity was yanked away, releasing me to a new torrent of ice and fire, light and shadow. I felt my essence – whatever tattered, fractured pieces were left – solidify into some alien body.

Sensations drenched me, dousing me with a return to the nightmare. The roar only grew louder; upon hearing, I realized it was just hundreds of tortured shrieks. Then touch returned; with it came agony. With taste, the iron bite of blood. With smell, gore and smoke. Sight returned to me, turning nothingness into simple blackness.

I felt gravel bite into my flesh as I crumpled to the floor. Cold fingers wrapped around my shoulders, and then ice splashed against my face, eliciting a weak cough from a body I hazily understood as my own.

"Mira-chan!" A new voice – one that truly thundered in my ears – came from above. It must have been saying this for a long time – it sounded hoarse. Yet it was still so weak: it was muted by the screams behind it.

I struggled to remember how to do it. They were just too heavy. Then whoever was out there peeled them back for me.

My eyelids opened with the aid, and I took in that blazing world beyond. Everything was shimmering, falling in and out of vapors. But I recognized that face, the one hanging above me; it had those eyes that refused to look away.

_Akio-senpai. _It was the first thought I had, and one that took away all my energy. My eyelids fell, and the vision was lost. Yet it had been enough.

In just that moment, I saw the world aflame around me. I saw the blood smeared along his face. I saw his eyes brimming with tears.

In just that moment, I saw what I had done.

And the words came back to me, _Do you have a soul?_


	12. Chapter 12

The world was bleary, unsteady as the sobs racked my chest. Sweat joined tears in the flood down my face, pooling with snot beneath my nose to drip off my chin. My teeth ripped through the lip on which they had been gnawing, causing scarlet iron to bite my tongue and run down the back of my throat. I gagged but was too weak to cough and spit it out. Everything ached, and reality was ice against my skin.

My quivering turned to convulsions, and my hands crushed the rough fabric of Akio-senpai's sleeve, fingers entangling themselves fully into his grip. The scarred priest grunted, heaving me in a controlled fall forward: his initial attempts to get me to run had stalled to this broken shuffle.

Even in my numb state, I realized that his gaze whipped this way and that, glaring into the flames and rubble beyond. I looked too – or at least tried. I didn't know where I was. Strange outlines rose out of the orange-flecked smoke – skeletons of buildings that I had never seen before. I could sense people out there too – more humans than I had ever known. I could hear their screams as they fled this nightmare I had created.

My body lurched to a halt as Akio-senpai yanked me back, hissing, and shoved me in another direction. I fell forward, my stomach roiling and heaving up dry retches. The spittle ran from my mouth as he kept thrusting me forward, twisting me through this endless hell of brimstone. My foot thudded against something, yet my balance was saved by a fierce yank from Akio-senpai: at the edge of my vision, I saw that I had tripped over a crimson-smeared arm. The heaving began again.

Akio-senpai snarled and wrenched me again yet this time to a full halt. My chin thunked against my chest, the whiplash popping the muscles in my neck. Squinting, I gazed through muck-coated eyelashes to see six shadows slithering from the smoke.

These were the first people I had seen, and something small fluttered in my chest. They were unhurt, it appeared, and were actually walking towards us. They appeared calm in the panic – they weren't screaming or shouting or crying. Yet that small fluttering thing died as I felt Akio-senpai's muscles coil like Kizuato-san's as he accepted a challenge.

It was then that I realized that the figures held objects in their hands. Objects that brightly bit the dark, reflecting the embers of the blaze around us.

_Kunai, _I half-realized. _Shinobi. _A limp gasp raked my throat as yet another of my dreams rotted before my eyes.

Akio-senpai shoved me behind him, glinting metal appearing in his freed left hand.

I stumbled on a newborn's legs, flopping to the floor like the pathetic creature I was. The wet dirt cushioned my fall, yet the sharp gravel and broken glass forced a yelp from my tongue. A sharp gust howled through our street, corralling blinding dust and choking smoke. Akio-senpai and the shadows disappeared in the dark just as the clashes of metal against metal began.

Gasps stabbed my throat as my fingers crunched into rocky soil. I shoved myself up, the screams of metal and man crashing against my eardrums until I couldn't distinguish one from the other. I slid my legs, dragging them through splintered wood and shattered glass, trying to gather myself to stand.

Yet I never got to that point. The darkness erupted as a form slammed into me. My chest crushed against my lungs, beating the breath out of me. I blinked, eyes burning as hot ash floated onto them. Nothing of the figure was visible: my world was opaque save for the cold steel frozen inches above my neck. Nothing but the person's tendrils of musubi.

Only once before had I felt such an immediate and innate loathing explode within me. A loathing so unnaturally deep that it must have sparked from the innermost core of my being that abhorred fire as well. I could only quake in disgust as its essence – its fetid mass of putridity and rot – writhed and burbled above me.

I squirmed weakly but whoever – w_hat_ever – had me pinned lifted and slammed me back into the floor. My skull cracked against something that splintered, and my vision flickered to black. Pressure built upon my chest, pinning me to the floor. Any thought of grasping the threads of reality were completely drowned out by absolute terror of what had happened.

I shook my head, sparking my vision once more, only to see that the smoke had cleared, allowing a bleary face join the kunai above me. Her hair was a sickly yellow, but black strands matted it like carnivorous brambles preying upon a dying sunflower. Her skin was too-white as if she'd never seen the sun, but a smattering of thin scars whispered that night was preferred. Thin lips gave way to soft cheeks that should have belonged to an innocent. Yet I knew the truth from her eyes: they were lifeless shards of a tainted ivory. I was looking at the skull of Death itself, and I let a snarl rip through the air.

The woman moved closer, scanning me with that dead expression. "Oh?" Her voice was sickeningly mellifluous, stroking against my eardrums like the claws of a starving tiger. "Something's different." She lifted her chin, revealing a black cloth wrapped around her neck with metal band attached. It had a strange symbol incised upon the steel – one that my vision could only express as a blur – but I had read enough to understand what it was.

I wasn't allowed to think much more as the kunai kissed my forehead, red lips forming as my blood rose to meet it. The scarlet liquid pool around it, curious, before breaking away, running down my nose and into my eyes. I tried to shake it out, but the kunai dug deeper.

I snarled again, ignoring the increased pressure grinding into my sternum as I struggled.

"What the hell is she?" snapped a voice to the right. Another blurry figure formed just outside my range of sight.

"Her eyes," Death ignored, grinding the kunai deeper. "They look different."

"She's no Uchiha," the other's voice snapped, filling the air with venom. "But she nearly took out the entire town."

Death blinked, a sickly purple staining her eyelids. "No, she's no shinobi. She's got no control." Her face slithered towards mine, her lifeless visage stopping just an inch from my skin. Her breath was ice and smelled like rotting roses. "You saw the scarred one. Once he got past her ninjutsu, she was easy to take down. Too easy. He just threw some water at her and slipped those beads around her neck."

My running blood became too much. I couldn't blink it out now. I was forced to shut my eyes, letting it pool there as hell burned around me.

The shadow continued in his graveled voice, "That was no priest." He let out a hiss. "He's old though. Should be easy enough."

"I know that scar," Death spoke. "He was one of the Mist's."

The other growled, "So not from the Leaf. It seems our mission has gotten interesting. You think there are others?"

"Yes. Keep your guard up." I felt her breath upon my face as the pooling blood found a natural rivulet down my cheek; it slithered away, joining my tears. "Now, little beast," Death whispered, "You've just ruined our mission, and I've lost all patience." The kunai met bone. "It's time to start answering questions. You a jinchūriki?"

My lips curled back, causing the blood to flood down my cheeks, as another snarl ripped out of my throat. A sharp smack from the back of her bony hand snapped my teeth together, but the hateful growl continued rumbling within my chest.

"I'm going to assume yes," she disgustingly cooed, "but which one is the question. I haven't heard anything about the Leaf losing the Nine Tails. So," she twisted the knife, "which one?"

My whimper scratched my tongue.

"_Which one_?" she hissed.

My fingers dug further into the dirt, stones wrenching nail from flesh. My whine deformed into a pained howl.

And in the distance, I heard an answer.

"The hell was that?" the man snapped, his voice terse but unfazed. He disappeared from my range of vision, though I could hear his steps pacing behind me. "Something's coming."

Death spit, "Well, we don't want someone going then." Her voice filled the air above me, directing her command at the man. "Hold her down."

I thrashed and jerked, shrieking and snarling, but boulders dug themselves into my shoulders as Death's clammy claws dug their nails into the skin of my left leg.

I heard the baritone cracks before I felt the agony. Each of my nerves screeched as bones were wrenched apart, their jagged edges tearing into the ligaments that fought to keep them together. The woman jostled my shattered ankle, testing her handiwork by the pitch of my screams.

"It's a war, monster," the man growled, releasing me.

I ripped open my eyes, locking the man – one whose features were hidden behind a kabuki mask – within my gaze. My teeth gnashed, my saliva turning frothy, as rage overpowered terror. I lashed out, rending past reality to tear at those threads of existence. But before I could – before I could see his body consumed by scarlet as the air filled with his shrieks – something tightened around my throat, something icy that snapped at my flesh with electric fangs. It choked me, locking me within my feeble and broken body, separating me from all that is and ever was.

I shook as feeble understanding whispered the truth to me, how truly I had been crippled.

"Can't do anything now, can you?" Death simpered. "Not with that necklace on."

I bit my cheeks, drawing blood, as I stared up at her skull-face. Terror and hate etched her features into my memory, searing even the tiniest scar into my mind, drawing laboriously over the gleam in her eye – like light flickering off yellowed bones. The whine in my throat turned into a weak growl.

"Little demon," she murmured, cupping my cheek in her skeletal hand, "you will make our village very happy."

I twisted and snapped at her hand, biting deeply into the flesh around her thumb. The blood welled in my mouth as I tore at the flesh, feeling the ligaments give way as I neared her bone.

She didn't even cry out. She just cracked the handle of her kunai against my temple. "What's coming?" she asked her partner, shaking her head and getting off of me, kicking my splintered ankle in the process.

I shrieked in pain, reaching for my leg as further movement only multiplied the torment. Then I smelt it – the scent that made me freeze, that made my stomach leap into my throat: the earthy scent of fur. I twisted to see the shinobi settle into crouches, hands gripping their kunai.

It was like yesterday and the hundred times before. Our alpha had taught us well. The hunt was on, and the whole pack was here.

I continued my shrieking, lending my pain to their camouflage, letting them know where I was. While the smoke should keep them hidden, it would blind them more completely than it would a human: both smell and sight would be rendered useless. I banged the ground, throwing off any vibration that could give location away and threw rocks at the shinobi. I hit the man in the shoulder. Just as he turned to snarl at me, the pack struck.

A shadow exploded from their right, releasing the feral demon of Kizuato-san as he snapped its fangs with a thunderous crack. The masked man turned, raising his weapon and falling into the trap. Utau-kun leaped from the black clouds, driving his yellow fangs through the man's armor and ending him as he would a rabbit.

Death was silent as she leapt away, escaping Ashi-chan's jaws a second too late. She disappeared into the smoke, launching a flurry of knives at my sister. One dug deeply into her snout, but the rest only bounced off the thick ruff coating her neck. Fur bristling, she shook her head with a whine but couldn't dislodge the blade as the wound bubbled red.

I struggled to stand, to help her, but could only fall pathetically onto my stomach. Gnashing my teeth against the torture, I crawled towards her to help remove the knife, only to feel myself lifted from behind by the fabric of my clothing. I shrieked as my leg swayed in the air, growing nauseous as it twisted unnaturally below me.

'_Kizuato-san!' _I yelped through my whimpers. His hot, heady breath was unmistakable.

'_We are taking you back to the forest, Mira-sama,' _Kizuato growled as he loped towards the edge of the town. He growled at the others. '_Ashi-chan, follow me and help protect Mira-chan. Utau-kun, help the rest get the priest.'_

Utau-kun obeyed without a sound, twisting and vanishing in the smoke.

Kizuato-san sprinted through the wrecked streets, leaping over toppled houses and broken forms. People flitted past us, appearing more like screaming and pointing apparitions that belonged to this shadow-world. It all began to blur before me. With each bounce, tremors barged through my leg, making me lightheaded from the agony. I couldn't protest that we were leaving our family. I couldn't ask what had happened. I just tried to keep from passing out as we raced back to the mountains, back to our home.

But even that I couldn't do.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke to the dull throbbing in my leg, thunderous echoes of the blinding torment before. My head quaked as a rather furious headache wailed against my skull, and I felt weak as if my heart was debating whether to teeter onwards. Everything ached, but the memories that came flooding back – misty, hazy nightmares – dug into me like hundreds of those kunai. Gritting my teeth, I opened my eyes to the stinging light of midday.

Familiar cracked, wooden beams above me, the comfort of a warm bed below. To my left, the window framed the thick green of the forest; to my right, a pile of bandages and a steaming tub of water. The sour tang of medicine nipped at my nostrils as I realized Azuumi-senpai's bed and clothes were gone. In their stead was Akio-senpai.

Barely any skin of his was visible. Beyond the clothing, it was wrapped in yards of the crude bandages that were tinged red. His bloodshot eyes were set in a mask of purple and black. He had been beaten to hell and back. He was sitting beside me, cross-legged on the floor, a whittled length of wood in his hands. He moved gingerly, breathed heavily, but looked at peace. He looked up from his work, watching me carefully with soft, black eyes. Our eyes met, but no word was said. He turned back to his work, nearly finished by the looks of it, and carved out another long, thin slice of wood. Its shape told me what it was.

I flinched as my teeth unconsciously met the raw wound they had left upon my lower lip. I clutched the light sheet that had been draped over me, gathering my nerves. With a grunt, I pushed myself up only to whimper as the movement rolled through my sore muscles and resounded within my shattered ankle.

Panting, I propped myself up on shaking elbows, feeling something slide along my chest. I looked down to see beads glowing burgundy against my white clothing. _Prayer beads. _I tried to grab them, but I couldn't support my weight with solely one arm. I was left frowning at them, realizing that a familiar coolness seeped from them.

I shook my head, limp, greasy hair falling before my eyes, when my gaze fell upon my leg. It was ensnared with the faded cloths we used to clean the floor, yet perfectly perched upon a ragged pillow like a crown from one of those old stories. It was anything but beautiful. Even under those makeshift bandages, I could see the queer angles of swelling, skin mottled purple and black. Humanity had been stripped from the limb, revealing it to be nothing more than a battered club.

"Ah. You're awake."

I looked up, my eyes dry, my expression blank. Yuuta-sama stood in the doorway, his eyes tired and warm like dying moss, two books in his hands. A ragged, puffy gash puckered out from his cheek, its hue particularly enhanced by the white robes he wore.

A pit burned in my stomach.

He shuffled closer, back hunkered over hips that seemed to not move quite right. He stopped at my bedside and kneeled down with a partially stifled groan. He kept his eyes on me, watching me – wary for good reason.

"Where should I begin?" he murmured, his words cracking at their edges. He set the books down and peered at a still-working Akio-senpai. Receiving no help, he winced at my leg, his throat growing flushed. He gave a light cough, settling his hands in his lap. "I suppose with an apology."

He looked at me, his eyes beginning to water. "I tried," he murmured. "I'm sorry, Mira-chan. I tried, but that was the best I could do. I'm no doctor, and we only had a book but-" His lips met in a frown. "It was the best I could do."

I looked away, already knowing what he couldn't say. The bones would never properly heal. I'd be lucky if I could ever walk again. But this wasn't what I wanted to hear – what I needed to hear.

He was wearing white.

Yuuta-sama coughed again, and the light just so hit the tears trickling down his cheek as to flare. My chest constricted, my nails dug into the blanket, memories of the splintering cosmic threads flashing amongst my memories. I gritted my teeth together and tried to keep my expression blank.

"You collapsed to the floor," he began. "We rushed to help you, but when Akio-san touched you, he was burned. I don't know what it was. I-" He stopped, catching himself. "I don't know how to explain it. You lifted into the air and started to fade, like you were made out of mist. Your shut your eyes and then began to glow. It was like a light was shining through you like- like-"

I saw him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. His voice cracked above the heavy breaths he was taking. "I should've understood the texts. They talked about that being the critical moment to stop the ceremony. To begin the misogi and place the beads around your neck." His hands balled into fists. "Akio-san remembered. He tried but did it wrong. That's when you began to scream. You opened your eyes and they had be-become-"

He trembled. With a sharp shaking of his head, he cut past, "You disappeared then. Akio-san shouted something, as if talking back to someone."

He fixed me in his gaze, but I didn't turn to meet it. "He told me he heard Okami-sama. That she was the one who directed him when he went after you. A 'teleportation justu' he said he used." He let out a soft laugh. "Chakra, eh? Truly part of the miraculous kushi-mitama."

The room became dark, clouds masking the sun outside. Yuuta-sama lowered his chin to the floor again. "Akio-san told me about Ojiro, the town at the base of this mountain. He said you didn't attack anyone at first, but then some shinobi started attacking you. Then things-" He stopped there, unable to continue, unable to explain why he was wearing the color of mourning.

My hands began to shake, so I folded them into one another. The shaking grew worse. My breath grew strained as I tried to steady myself, tried to shove away the visions of hell.

"Two wolves," the guttural words rumbled out.

My head whipped to the Akio-senpai. He stopped working, the soft thwip-thwip of his knife no longer filling the air: my world seemed to die as that last note disappeared from the air. He looked up, and his eyes met mine. The pain had settled upon him, familiar with the ragged edges of his face.

"The black and grey one, and the little white one," he murmured. "The first one saved me. Got the shinobis off, but-" He stopped. "The other was poisoned. Died two days ago."

I made no noise as he placed his finished work at my side, stood up. He walked to the door and stopped. Facing the hallway, he murmured, "They're coming for you, you know. And they won't stop." He left the room, his steps unnaturally heavy as they beat the floor. His presence disappeared with the words, "And they won't be the only ones either."

I stared down at the pale, rough-hewn cane he had given me. I stared down at the handle carved in the likeness of Utau-kun. I stared and felt nothing.

I didn't talk after that. Not for a long time.


	14. Chapter 14

The gale howled, snapping at everything in its path. It lunged at the leaves, sending fragile green bits into a panic. They tore at one another, a crackling hiss forming from their terrified screams. I gritted my teeth, trying to block out their shrieks – block out those memories – and nestled deeper into the willow's shelter.

My gaze flickered to the pond stretched below me, and I watched its black surface cringe and flee from the ravished wind. Images bounced into one another, bursting into new ones, but I could see its whole form – the one encroaching above me. Storm clouds were gathering for another deluge. The hair at the nape of my neck rose: I could feel those universal strings bristling with the electricity gathering above.

I rubbed the hair down and sighed, watching the ripples intensify to little waves. A fragment of wood floated towards me. I tilted my head, recognizing it as a fragment from the haiden. Though the others had tried to repair the damage – to hide what had happened that night – they had missed this piece. It approached me now, braving the storm to pursue its revenge.

Frowning, I kicked out at it, unleashing a wave that shoved it away. My ankle hissed at the impact, but lowered its hackles when the frigid water and polar wind latched onto it and drowned my nerves.

I stared down at that bulged flesh, my brow creasing, my fangs unsheathing. It tethered me, kept me to a pathetic, lurching crawl. Its mere presence whispered the truth of what had happened, what I had done. I closed my mouth, scowling at the thing that raged at the slightest movement – the thing that couldn't even bear the slightest pressure of the fabric brushing against it now. I stared at it and accepted it, knowing what it truly was. _My punishment. _

The tempest nipped at the leg I left hanging from the branch, numbing the aching flesh with icy kisses. I peered at my puckered skin, mottled black, purple and yellow, as the abrasive wind raked the red fabric up. Unconsciously, my eyes flicked down to my cane resting on the trunk below me.

Utau-kun's eyes stared up at me.

The ever-present dull ache in my chest sharpened, and I pressed a pallid hand against it. I looked down, seeing my wasted flesh pull back to outline pale bones.

It had been six months since that night. The time had passed ephemerally. Everything had become hollow. Nothing was truly worth remembering. Tears no longer came from my eyes: the searing sores lining my throat seemed to have burned the water away. Most of the others had given up on getting me to speak now. Yori-senpai was the only stubborn enough one to keep at it. Hours after I first woke, he had come into my room, hands clenched into balls, gaze on the floor. He apologized to me, his voice wavering between shouts and silence.

"Yuuta-sama had prepared Akio-kun and me," he had whispered. "Told us what to do if anything went wrong. We rehearsed the water blessing and we had the beads ready. I just was too scared- I-

He stopped, shaking his head. He faced the doorway, turning his back to me. "I'm going to make it right. Make _you _right." His shoulders hunched forward. Then he looked back at me, tears in his eyes. "I promise I'll protect you from whoever comes next."

Azuumi-senpai was the one who tried to pretend that nothing had happened. She acknowledged it at first, but the way she jumped when she saw me come into the room, the way she gingerly helped me with my clothes, the way she always was watching me – I knew she was scared of me. I guessed as much when she hadn't moved back into our room, preferring a closet instead

I let out another tired breath, seeing the temple's lights leak through my hand's wasted flesh. My own body was turning on me, rejecting my spirit as the Pitch had done. Memories of the event – of the panic, of the agony, of the helplessness – began to snap at the edges of my mind, worsening the frays. I viciously shoved them back, feeling my own body begin to tremble, trying to shove me out with the effort.

Automatically, I entangled my fingers into the prayer beads encircling my neck. A refreshing coolness swept through me, grounding me in reality. I felt the vibrations of the universal fabric fade: still present but so faint, so constant as to be ignored like a heartbeat. The building electricity above, the base thrumming of the woods, the bright sparkling threads of life – of the bird roosting above me, of Yori-senpai's and Azuumi-senpai's as they bustled around the kitchen, of my own – I let them all slide beneath the blanket of ignorance. Even after I had stopped shaking, I didn't let go of those wooden pearls.

Yuuta-sama had called these beads my 'training weights' of sorts. He rolled out the scrolls on my sickbed that described the ritual which would teach me better control over smaller and heavier bits of energy. This necklace I now wore – these worn, simple wooden pearls – had been created by the first guji of this shrine. That head priest understood that perhaps future vessels would lack the proper mental control and restraint – a situation that the scrolls sharply criticized before demanding further meditation and practice over manipulation of this 'chakra'. However, overexertion, the writings warned, would lead to exhaustion and possibly death.

These prayer beads now bouncing against my chest apparently acted as a sort of 'funnel' for me – a restriction which forced me to focus on only the minute amounts it allowed, making it even more difficult for me to sense them let alone manipulate them. Soon, my strength would build and eventually I would be able to interact with the kamigami themselves – beings entirely made of this essence.

I frowned at that portion, annoyed that I was still such a novice after leaving the Ancient Wood. Yuuta-sama noticed my expression but misattributed it to hatred of the necklace. "I know it may be uncomfortable at first, but you need these," he spoke. "It'll help stop-" He paused, frowning as he tried to find the right words. But I knew the words he wanted to avoid.

As a testament to the mastery and foresight of the first miko, I couldn't remove the prayer beads. There was some _mechanism _in them – some intricate interlocking of chakra – that had stitched themselves _into _me, like it had attached itself to my soul. The first time I realized this was when I had gone to remove them before a bath. Panicking as the cord grew so tight as to suffocate, I had tried to rip them off me before igniting a pain so overwhelming that even my ankle's injury whimpered and hid from it. Addressing Yuuta-sama later, he gave an apologetic look but gave a firm reply that he took the lesser of two dangers when he placed those beads around me.

"Besides," he attempted to cajole, "you look more official now with those beads around your neck. You'll just have to get used to them."

A clap of thunder echoed through the valley. I looked up through the shifting leaves and watched another streak of lighting etch its path in the heavens, eagerly following its brother to death. Faint memories of a childhood long abandoned crackled to the surface. Ka-san was beside me, howling at the heavens and inciting the storm. It all raged around me – floods of rain, white-capped winds, and the barbaric play of electricity. I leapt with them, catching their hands, feeling their currents run through me. I could frolic with them, match them in their savagery. I could sit and just watch those lucent sparks dance across my fingertips.

Another guttural roar slammed itself upon the earth, shaking my teeth and the splinters of bone in my shattered ankle. I gritted my teeth, letting the pain fill me. I closed my eyes and lowered my chin, letting my hand fall to my side. _Ka-san, I'm sorry. _

A baritone whine came from behind me, '_Sister.'_

I opened my eyes, an unnoticed tension relinquishing my shoulders. With painstakingly protracted caution, I carefully maneuvered myself off the branch, sliding my full weight onto my good foot and keeping a palm on the willow's trunk. Whispering a thanks to my trustworthy barked friend, I grabbed my cane, only then letting my left foot down in a charade of its original function. I teetered around the brambles of roots, inching to halt when I stood in front of my brother.

'_Teru-kun,' _I welcomed, taking in his equally wasted form. I wasn't shocked that he was here inside the temple. He had started coming nearly every day now, completely eschewing the original borderlines. He followed the path we used to sneak in as pups.

The starved wolf leaned forward, sniffed, and then lightly licked my forehead, careful to not throw me off-balance. He hunkered down in the grass, his natural bulk still forcing him to lower his snout to meet my gaze evenly. '_Does it hurt?' _he asked with a muted flick of his ear.

I wiped off his spit, reigning in a grimace at its rancid smell and unhealthy viscosity. I gave a small whine of assent, leaning against the smooth bark. '_Now and again.' _

He let out a low rumble, reminiscent of the storm's own rage, and rested his chin on the dirt, staring into a distance only he saw. His ribs rattled as a heavy breath wheezed out of him, his body shuddering at the effort. He had lost his winter's coat: now his fur was thin, sparse, lusterless. His once brilliant amber eyes had dulled to mud, haunted by what they had seen. Those eyes were the cause of the broken creature before me. He never spoke of it, but I knew. He had been there when they both passed. He had watched the lights of our brother and sister fade from this world, leaving him haunted by the memories.

With a shaking paw, he rubbed his snout – a habit he'd taken up since they had died. Every time he did it, I only thought of Ashi-chan – the way she had tried to get the kunai out. I never asked, but I knew that he saw her too.

I gulped and looked away. '_How're things?'_

'_It's been hard. All that's happened. We're all healing, though Ka-san is still struggling.' _He let out a weak growl. '_We tried to stop her from cleaning Ashi's wound but-' _He stopped, halting that heartbroken whine only to continue with whimpers. '_Well, she's gotten herself together after Ashi and Utau and the stillbirths.' _He shook his head, forcing the pain from his tone. He glanced up at me, his form relaxing. For a moment, he looked like his old self again. '_The pups that lived are healthy. The two of them are still so tiny,' _he rumbled, '_but they're growing quickly. I've tussled with them once or twice, and they're pretty strong already. Their naming ceremony will happen tomorrow.' _His ear flicked. '_Come.' _

'_Really?' _I took a shaky breath, knowing where the blame for all that pain truly lay.

Teru-kun caught the feigned calm and growled. '_No one blames you, Mira-chan. Pack protects pack. Besides, you're their sister. You have to be there.' _He straightened up, his eyes darkening to that poisonous sludge. His rumbling deepened to the beginnings of a roar. '_We all know who is to blame.' _

I gritted my teeth, looking up at the wound still healing along the side of his snout. I could see the embers burning dully within his murky eyes, igniting the hatred that rolled. My own anger – so barely beneath the surface – roused by its kinsman. Images of Death floated before me, the kunai in her hand, dripping with my blood. I let out that tattered breath and grimaced. Even then I hadn't been a match for her. And now-

I bit my tongue as my gut whispered the truth: I would never win against her in the state I was in. I looked up at Teru-kun, wondering if he accepted the truth too. He had taken down a shinobi or two, but that was when he had the element of surprise. My brother had admitted that he had gone back to the village, tried to hunt them down. Realizing they had left, he had returned to the pack only to be nearly mauled by an irate and heartbroken Kizuato-san. Our alpha understood the truth of the matter; if shinobi and pack met again, the wolves would be the ones to die. He ordered the pack to stay in the mountains, to remain in our territory and not provoke another death.

I looked at Teru-kun, sitting here in the shrine already disobeying the forest's law, and gritted my teeth.

'_There haven't been any in the forest yet,' _my brother announced, his tail swishing behind him. '_Should be soon though if that human of yours is right. Then the hunt will begin.' _He fixed me with a smoldering pupil. '_Will you be ready?'_

The heavens broke above us with another blinding flash and an earsplitting roar. The rain pounced from the black horde, charging the ground with a hateful hiss, continuing the eternal battle between of water and earth. Teru-kun lowered his ears and looked up, his lips curling back to reveal glinting fangs larger than my hand.

I lowered my head, pulling the cane to my chest, and let the rain hammer against my hair and drench my clothing. Teru-kun shifted to his feet and strode towards me. Knowing what he was going to do, I tried to scramble away, but with a gentle nip, he gathered the back of my shirt and lifted me up. I could seams' screams as they tore, but I could only growl and snarl that I wasn't some pup. He ignored me and carefully stepped over to the main building, delicately lowering me onto the sheltered pathway, only releasing me when I snapped that I was fine.

I shifted my weight to the cane and glared at him, his visage shrinking as the rain slicked down his fur. The wolf shrunk before me until I could barely distinguish him from the pup of my childhood.

I shook my head, tossing the worst of the water off of me, and grumbled, '_You stink. Hopefully you'll get a bath from this.'_

His retort was a savage shake, drenching me with pungent, muddy water. I glared at him, brushing back dripping tangles. His eyes flickered, his tail lightly wagging. '_Hopefully that will clean you up. You're smelling more like human every day.'_

I sniffed and began to crunch the water out of my hair. '_I'll go,' _I murmured. '_I want to meet my little sisters.'_

He cocked his head. '_I'll meet you at dusk then.'_

'_I'm not some whelp,' _I snarled. '_I can make it on my own.'_

His ear twitched and he leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing. He released a hot, heavy breath, nearly toppling me. '_I don't mind,'_ he huffed._ 'Like I've always said. You're just a little flea to me.' _

I glared at him, righting myself. '_Fleas can bite,_' I snapped.

He straightened up, a happy rumble echoing in his chest. '_That they do.' _He scratched himself with a hind leg as another crack of lightning pierced the sky, revealing the outlines of the countless droplets plummeting to the earth. With another shake as a parting gift, he turned, and loped off, disappearing into the sheets of rain.

I watched the spot where he vanished for quite a long while. Sighing, I turned and staggered my way into the kitchen, still unused to the cane. Azuumi-senpai and Yori-senpai were whirling around the counters and pots and the fire, chattering away but this and that. They greeted me, Yori-senpai with a large grin and a larger "Miko-chan!" and Azuumi-senpai with an awkward little wave.

I nodded back at them, inching towards an available chair. However, before got anywhere, I sensed Yuuta-sama approaching from his study. I looked up as the door opened, and he poked his grizzled old head out. "Mira-chan?" His gaze fixed on me. "Oh good! Thought it was you. Come on in. I think I've figured something out." He disappeared back inside the candlelit room.

I changed trajectory and teetered over. I shuffled inside, and careened into my seat, immediately stretching out my whimpering leg. As Yuuta-sama shuffled through some papers, losing his focus as usual, I tested my ankle's flexibility. I grimaced at the flickers of pain restricting my foot's motion to only a few centimeters in any direction.

Yuuta-sama looked up from his work, almost surprised that I was there. "Ah," he began, shoving some scrolls and books in front of me. "Look here. The top one."

I looked up, moving my hands from tender flesh to soft leather. I picked up the well-worn book, recognizing it as one of the ones he had brought into the room when I first regained consciousness. No title marred its black cover and its weight felt comfortable, familiar even in my calloused and weakened grip. I opened the text, seeing an elegant, handwritten sprawl of words.

_Ridiculous, _I miffed, considering my own uneven scratches. _They had too much time to practice._

"The fifth sentence," Yuuta-sama directed, leaning over and flipping a few pages for me. "Read it out loud if you will."

I found the words and peered at them silently. Reading had filled most of my time these days, and I ripped through even the most archaic of phrases and definitions. I leapt over the words that had faded out, the holes eaten by hungrier worms. Still, the message didn't make too much sense overall.

_The Guardian - the Mediator- has - these woods since ancient times - directed to build this shrine - honor - Tree na- ado. The kami rests - amongst these mountains - Divine Tree - waiting to - eternal war. The Guardian and Me - the Fun- entrusts to us. The Guardian-tor raises the - messages - the kami of this shrine - of all kamigami. _

I frowned at the message, turning to Yuuta-sama for an explanation.

He lifted an eyebrow, both a reprimand for the silence and a compliment to the speed. However, his expression fell as he refocused himself on the task at hand. He leaned back in his chair, letting a heavy breath escape his nose. "I should've realized it sooner," he murmured. "I should never have let you do the ritual. None of us were ready, and I was the one who let us down. I was too excited to see what this all meant."

I leaned back myself, frowning at that nonsense.

He steeped his fingers. "I believe I know the kami you spoke to. At least, I have hints." He fixed me within the lens of his glasses, a light grimace contorting his lips. "You shouted a lot of things during your fever in the days after that night. A lot of what you said bothered me as not making sense, especially that you kept saying 'Not Ka-san. Not Ka-san.' I always had this hunch about what I was reading, but it never seemed plausible. There was just never enough evidence for another kami – the records were so badly damaged. _But _I've been trying to match what you've said with the text," he bustled on, flipping through some pages. "You know how confusing these records are just from this one, but let me explain."

I blinked.

"Okami-sama is a guardian – _the _Guardian, yes? Of the shintai, of the kamigami?"

I nodded.

He splayed his hands. "Well, perhaps she is the guardian of the _true _kami of this shrine. She's a komainu."

I shifted in my seat, a snarl tickling my throat.

"Now wait, wait," he continued, tapping the scroll. "I have my reasons. The ritual was supposed to link you directly with the kami this shrine was devoted to, and that was not Okami-sama. I looked back at the texts and realized that they could be possibly talking about two kamigami – this 'resting kami' and the Guardian who I think is equated to the title 'Mediator' as well. Look, read it again."

Frowning, I did so, framing the words within his interpretation. I wrinkled my brow, seeing that it could work. _Still, _I pressed, _how would I have not recognized the kami if it lived in these woods? Why would Ka-san not tell me about the other kami of this shrine?_

I sharpened back to focus, hearing Yuuta-sama continue, "This 'resting kami' is mentioned in all of these scrolls, but I always thought it referred to Okami-sama along with the term 'Guardian'. The Guardian was explicitly called the 'Mother of all Wolves' but no explanation is made for the other kami." He tapped a finger on his desk.

"It still makes sense if you think of Okami-sama as strictly the Guardian. I was always confused why the Guardian was also mentioned in contexts that a messenger kami would be defined by. While she is still honored at this shrine, the statues of her are in the traditional spots for such kamigami. Perhaps this means that Okami-sama acts as a protector and messenger for this 'resting kami' and her 'Mediator' title makes sense with regards to you.'" He tilted his head at me. "Who else would send someone to remind man of the kamigami."

I stared at the scroll he held, trying to imagine Ka-san in the context of solely a messenger kami. I frowned, innately feeling that it was wrong. She was a kami – the kami of all wolves, a protector of the Ancient Wood. I bit the corner of my cheek, recalling her last words to me: _There are many things I have not been able to tell you, things that no kami speak of. Things you will learn when you are ready. Things only mortals can truly understand. _

I let a groan pummel my teeth as my ankle began to ache. I released the muscles that had unconsciously seized up. I looked at Yuuta-sama, wondering how he could understand something even the kamigami didn't.

He was shaking his head. "This is all wrong though. Not only did the Guardian have to save the miko from her shrine's kami, but no other scroll mentions that 'resting kami' in any way." He let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes. "Not in a single one of these surviving fragments, except that one. Even the true name of this shrine has been lost. It's like it was all purposefully erased. No wonder the 'resting kami' was angry."

He gave a weak grin, chortling softly as he shook his head. He looked me in the eyes. "Strange, huh? I almost feel like they were destroyed on purpose, but why would the old priests get rid of any mention of their kami?"


	15. Chapter 15

I was running. Running on legs that were whole and strong. Running through woods fresh from spring rain. The leaves nipped at my skin, and the soft, wet dirt clung to my feet. I whipped past the world, faster and faster until the emeralds of leaves merged with the salmons, sapphires, and topazes of the flowers and the streams and the stars. The world itself began to blur, shimmer, as the tapestry beneath was revealed. Joy bubbled in my soul as I relished the beauty that embraced me. I looked down at myself, curious as to how I truly fit in with the rest of creation and then saw the truth.

I was covered with a putrid sludge – a poison that kept me immobile, rendered me a blockage to the stream of existence that ran past me. I could see my bloated body beneath me, my foot crippled and my skin rotting and encrusted with dirt and smoke. I was a blemish – a dirty, festering wound in this netherworld. But deep down, I knew it wasn't supposed to be like this. I had once been able to pluck these strings, watching their tremors spark life itself into existence. I ground my teeth, watching my form ooze a darkness onto this world. _Where it did it go wrong? Why was it like this? _

I knew if I couldn't wash it off, I would die. I just had to dip a hand into that stream rushing past me. I just had to force myself. I just had to reach. But I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. I was trapped. I couldn't even scream. That pallid, skull-face floated over me and-

Something appeared just off to my right. It was blurry at first, but then it grew closer. Edges sharpened, forms defined. I blinked as I realized it was a hand. It was reaching out to me, offering an escape.

My eyes strained to see a figure there, but it was still too blurry to fully recognize. I could see that its mouth was moving. It was shouting something at me as it forced its hand closer. I watched it say words I couldn't hear, words I didn't recognize. It reached out to me, nearly touching my rotting hand. I could make out something blue on its forehead, something glinting. I could see a symbol and-

Pat. Pat. Pat

I woke to the soft steps of Yuuta-sama. My door slid open, but I kept my eyes closed, my breath steady. He knew I was awake though; I was too light of a sleeper not to have noticed his approach.

"Mira-chan?" he murmured. "Dinner." There was a pause. "You having dreams as well? Strange, aren't they? I thought they were warnings about the shinobi that hurt you and Akio-senpai, but I'm never afraid in them. These dreams actually remind of those that told me you were coming. Perhaps the kamigami are saying we can make peace with them?"

There was a sigh after another short pause before he slid the door closed and left.

I opened my eyes and stared at a crack in the wall. _The kamigami are liars. _I groaned and began the precipitous balancing act that was standing up before finally trudging that arduous journey to the table. When I finally fell into my seat, the food was arrayed before me and the others were already talking.

"He's watching the woods," Yori-senpai answered Yuuta-sama, shoveling more of the rice into his bowl. "He's been doing it every night." He frowned, setting the rice down and picking up his chopsticks. "Though I doubt anyone can actually find this place. No one even goes up these mountains. Last one was me, and I didn't even know I was following anything. Just thought I had gotten lost in the woods and well-" He shook his head and tossed a few white grains into his mouth.

"You really think shinobi will come to the shrine?" Azuumi-senpai asked, watching the steam rise from her bowl. She hid the shaking of her fingers in a careful tap-tap-tap against the smooth wood. "Think they could find this place and take-" She paused, and I could feel her eyes flicker over to me.

I only stared at my food, trying to force each tasteless, rough kernels down my dry throat.

"I do," Yuuta-sama sighed. "Akio-senpai said that shinobi will do anything to win this war. After traveling through the nations and seeing the towns they've destroyed and the fields of the dead, I believe him. Especially now that they've confused her for a jinchūriki."

"So what should we do?" Azuumi-senpai murmured. "Even in our prime, none of us commoners would stand a chance – except Akio-san of course. And here we are teetering around like a bunch of old cows – especially Akio-san now that he's hurt." Her fingers curled into a shaking fist. "I _refuse _to let them- let them…"

I felt her eyes upon me again. I swallowed, shoving off the next grain on its cruel, raking path.

"They have to find this place first," countered Yori-senpai. "Everyone's forgotten that it even exists." He raised a pale, shaking finger. "And _if _they do, we'll just fight 'em off. We have the kamigami on our side."

Yuuta-sama folded his fingers. "Never presume to know the kamigami. I had hoped we had learned that."

I gritted my teeth as the group conversed around me, a subtle sensation tickling at my consciousness. I strained, trying to focus on that familiar quivering, trying to peer at the light beyond the heavy, safe cloak the prayer beads afforded my soul. Masking the infinite tapestry around me, the beads seemed to have only sharpened my senses at times: now, for better or for worse, I was beginning to sense and recognize chords and patterns I had never realized. I was a nearly deaf person to whom the barest notes had become the sweetest symphonies.

Tentatively, I lowered my chopsticks to the table and looked up from my plate. I knew he was approaching: I could recognize his matted tangle of chords that comprised him. _I suppose the beads are working, _I grumbled.

Azuumi-senpai turned to me, her gaze followed by the others' when Teru-kun washed the night with an ethereal howl. The notes filled the kitchen, its tenor even shaking the water in the cups. Yori-senpai sucked in a breath, his nails digging into the table.

I turned to everyone, dipping my head in a farewell before I teetered to my feet. Gathering my weight, I placed it all onto the cane as I shuffled towards the front entrance. The voices picked up behind me again.

"Mira-chan!" came a cry.

I blinked, turning to see Azuumi-senpai rushing out of the kitchen. Her face was flushed and she fuddled with her hands. "Wait one second," she murmured. "I know after all these years we can't convince you to stay. So, if you have to go be safe and- I- uh- Well, it's still pretty cold out there, and it looks like it'll rain at any moment. I-I-uh- wait one second."

My grip tightened around Utau-kun's snout as she bustled off to her room. Bangs came from the walls before she hustled out, hair askew, propping up a heavy, folded cloth in her arms. She paused before me, a weak smile crinkling her cheeks, and rolled it out. The scent of leather took my nose hostage as a long, traveler's coat was revealed.

"I made it for you," she murmured, lowering her gift. "As an apology." She wrinkled her brow. "After everything that happened, I just realized that-" She paused taking in a breath. "I just had promised myself I'd never lose anyone else. That night I just got scared. I thought it was going to happen all over again and-" She frowned, shaking her head. "Forget about that. Here." She walked up to me and began to shove the thing over my neck. "It's cold out there. I just don't want you to get sick." She patted the fabric down and lifted up the hood over my head, blinking wet eyes. "I want you to stay safe."

"Just confused you for a shinobi." Punched in the gut, I looked over at Yori-senpai who was leaning against the doorframe. He uncrossed his arms, revealing that he held something in his left hand. He sauntered over, the gift swaying in each stride. "Here."

He placed the object in my free hand, and loose straps unfurling past the edges of my hand. The dark bits of leather were intricately knotted around a thick, smooth rod of wood, flaring out from this center in three grooved straps. I blinked and looked up at him.

He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I'll admit Akio-kun did most of the work. I was more the idea-man behind it if you will." He jerked his chin at it. "It's like a splint for your ankle for when you're doing – eh – more _Okami-chan _things if you will. We've been trying to get it together for weeks, but it's pretty tricky to make. It kept falling apart when we tested it." His smile grew brighter. "We can make it look a bit better when you get back, but since you're going out tonight I thought you'd give it a test run before we do anything else. Besides," he continued with a grin, "Yuuta-sama himself blessed it."

My throat grew hot and began to swell as if rejecting another piece of rice. I tried to force a thank you out but only a soft whimpering groan eked through the swollen muscles. Both adults lifted their chins, glancing at each other as if assuring one another that they had heard me respond. Azuumi-chan beamed, a hand covering her mouth, while Yori-senpai waved me off.

"Here," he muttered, taking it back, "let's slip it on." He bent down, angling awkwardly around my cane, and slipping the contraption around the bandaged, bulging flesh. I restrained any snarls as the leather tightened around my flesh and ignited my nerves.

"There," he announced. "Test it out."

I carefully added fractions of my weight to my reinforced ankle to discover it could take another few pounds. I looked at them both, shakily sketching a grin around my teeth with unused muscles. Now both of their eyes had gone wet. Something twinged inside of me, but to name it an emotion would be too aggressive.

My attention was caught by a yip from outside: Teru-kun was waiting. I dipped my head to them, trying to keep the smile on for as long as the now-aching muscles would allow me. I turned to the door, and Azuumi-senpai hustled over to open it for me.

"Stay safe," she muttered, watching me lurch outside.

Yori-senpai nodded, walking behind me. "Don't go disappearing on us now. Come back soon. We'll wait up for-"

I turned to see that he had gone pale. His gaze was locked onto Teru-kun who stared curiously back at him. My brother's ears tilted back, his form straightening as a strange human refused to break eye contact. Teru-kun's lips flickered, his tail whipped the ground.

'_Is he seriously challenging me?' _he asked with the light growl forming in his throat.

I coughed, making Yori-senpai flinch and turn away his gaze – the wolf's sign of submission. He shuffled a few steps back, shaking his head and staring at me and then to an equally horrified Azuumi-senpai. "Well," he squeaked out, running a shaking palm through his hair, "I suppose this explains a lot."

I let my forced smile flare and wink out as I turned and stalked out into the night, stopping beside my brother. I scratched his leg in greeting as he bent to sniff the cloak. '_What's that?' _he growled. '_Looks weird, smells weirder.' _He settled onto the ground, dipping his shoulder towards me. '_You're more a human every day.'_

I glowered at him, fangs unsheathing.

He turned towards me, his ear flicking. '_You're still my little flea,' _he cajoled. '_No need to worry. But hurry and get on. It will begin soon.'_

'_Then let's go_.' I snapped my jaw shut and limped away into the woods.

With an amused bark, my brother got to his feet, scooping me up in his jaws. '_We need to be quick,' _he answered, ignoring my snaps and snarls. He carefully placed me on top of shoulder, working his joint so that I slid onto his withers.

Grimacing both in pain and injured pride, I grumbled some insults but latched onto his fur, positioning my leg to an awkward but non-tortuous position. Teru-kun shifted his weight beneath me, testing my stability. I sucked in a breath as a muscle jostled my ankle, but the leather splint actually muffled most of the pain. I looked to my still dumbfounded human family, dipped my head in farewell, and gave a barely audible yap.

Teru-kun barked in assent and loped into the woods. The wind swept past me, its gentle touch stroking my cheek and teasing my hair. I breathed in the freshness, soaking in the scents of damp nature. It had been so long since I had truly been in the forest – felt this wild, this free. Those cosmic stings rang a sour tenor, dulled by that black shroud – life coursing through those tenuous strands that comprised the leaves. Alongside my brother, heading to my pack, and my chest full of the night's air, I managed to ignore my leg bouncing against Teru-kun's side as he hopped over a downed log.

We coursed up hills, following old trails I remembered padding down, the shrine's stolen sweets melting in my mouth. And just around this bend would be- Yes, there it was. The meadow. Even in the dark, I could see spring's sweet kiss upon the land – flowers burgeoned and blazed like comets under the caresses of the full moon. Reds, pinks, violets – each color had their own scent, their own memory. Those sweet and tangy scents sparked flashes of my childhood. It was here where our litter had played with each other, had learned the songs of our ancestors, and had learnt the hunt from our elders.

A dull ache grew in my chest as once more I thought of Utau-kun and Ashi-chan. I bit my lip, teeth fitting the outline of the scar, as Teru-kun paused upon the hill's crest.

The pack was scattered below, ears perked, tails curled into the air, tongues lolling and strutting with a strange bow-legged gait. Hearing our approach, they turned to us, barking and yipping in a greeting with each pant marked by a thick, puffy steam. I tilted my head, bemused with their curious actions when I realized why.

Two tiny blobs of fur were scampering around wildly, nipping at all the adults' heels and tails, grabbing at everything they could. The pups were pouncing in every direction, tripping on their own large feet most of the time. The quicker one was a soft chestnut but black undertones peaked like waves along her back and lined her ears and snout. The other was awash with the grey spectrum, but her underbelly was a soft creamy white reminiscent of Hana-san's hues. Isamu-san hopped out of the reach of the latter, lowering his snout to nuzzle her back. The brown and black one took her opportunity to snatch the tail he let hang low, sparking him to a burst of movement.

'_I hope we were never that annoying,' _Teru-kun muttered, a wag of his tail softening his words. As he trudged down the slope, the other adults sacrificed Isamu-san to the pups' hunt and padded over to us. My throat grew hot as they circled around Teru-kun, sniffing and licking both of us, filling the air with happy whines.

'_Strange furs, Mira-chan,' _Tsume-san remarked with a puckering of a lip. '_Humans force you into this? It smells pretty terrible.'_

'_Your leg,' _murmured Shizuka-san, '_seems mostly healed. Does it still hurt?'_

'_When do you think you can hunt again?' _asked Tsume-san.

Answers caught in my swollen throat, but Teru-kun silenced them with a growl. '_Let her get off me first.' _He lowered his belly to the floor and waited as I slid off. Landing on my good foot, I lowered my cane to the floor and balanced out my weight. Teru-kun sidled over to the pups and nipped at their ears in greeting.

Isamu-san joined the rest of the wolves in circling me. My cane had reignited a new round of snuffling, tentative licks, and questions. I tried to answer them the best I could, but my attention was distracted as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pups staring at me. They turned to Teru-kun, to each other, and then sniffed the air cautiously. The brown one padded forward, stopped, stepped back, and bumped into her sister. Startled, she let out a yip before realizing who the attacker was, but continued watching me cautiously.

A deep bark rang out and the maelstrom of fur and tongues parted as Kizuato-san and Hana-san stepped forward. The scent of the den was fresh on them as they padded up to me. Grey tinged Kizuato-san's coat, and age deepened his gaze. Hana-san moved slowly, exhaustion in her bones and in her spirit.

'_Mira-dono,' _Kizuato-san rumbled, dipping his nose to nuzzle me, '_welcome home.' _

Eyes that had been dry for weeks suddenly grew damp. '_Kizuato-san, Hana-san, I'm so so-'_

'_We've missed you, Mira-chan,' _Hana-san cut in, her tone clear that there was no blame. She embraced me with a tired, little lick. '_It hurt that you've been away for so long, but both of us were too weak for the journey. For days, I was afraid I had lost you too.'_

I lifted my chin, eyes going dry as I remembered myself as a wolf. I glanced at my family and announced in a whine, '_I've missed you all too.' _I tilted my head, gazing past Hana-san's form and spied two curious, twitching ears. '_And I'm excited to meet my little sisters.'_

The grey one was now lying on her back, bored with the proceedings and busy flapping her paws in the air. The brown one hopped from one paw to the other, ears bouncing with both anticipation and fear.

'_Come meet your sister,' _Kizuato-san called them. The brown one bounded forward as if the chains had been broken from her neck; the other yawned, rolled to her feet, and began a lazy lope after her sister.

They careened into Hana-san's back paws, peeking out from the sides. Hana-san flicked her tail, admonishing them for their rudeness and stepped away, revealing two balls of fluff with ears still crinkled in youth. They blinked at me, still unsure of themselves as Kizuato-san also left them. They were still too young to annunciate raw emotions into more clarified forms. Instead, the two pups blasted you with their full feelings – unable to restrain themselves from pure curiosity, happiness, or fear.

The chestnut one puffed her chest, hyperventilating as a whine eked through a pup's astonishingly white teeth. She pranced, charging forward than jumping back, slowly working up her courage to greet the strange figure in their midst. She stared at me with brilliant yellow eyes, never wavering but still not brave enough to turn her whimpers into a growl.

The grey one simply sat down, cocked her head at me, sniffed, and sneezed.

My cheeks crinkled as a smile tugged at my lips. I ignored the pain as I slowly lowered myself to their eye level – a height just a few inches below mine. I remained where I was, allowing them to make the first moves when they were ready.

The brown sat, yipped anxiously, and then bounded back onto her feet. She inched forward, wriggling her nose and taking in my scent. Stopping a few inches away from me, she tilted her head, resolve forming in her sunny gaze. Her whimper turned to a soft growl, and then she darted forward, playfully nipping at my hair. I nuzzled against her plushy side, allowing her to grapple with my thick coat which was holding up reassuringly well against the sharp baby teeth.

Seeing us, the grey one slowly got to her feet, stretched out her back languorously, and then padded forward after her sister. The chestnut one saw her and darted from my side to bowl into her sister, creating a heap of fur and cheerful yelps.

I couldn't help laughing. The sound creaked out of my throat oddly, its disuse so apparent. The pups' ears perked at the strange human noise, and the grey one came forward. She sniffed me, nuzzled and nipped my chin to try and make me make the noise again. The brown one slid up to me, beginning to nibble and yank on my hair while the other gnawed on my hand.

Grinding my teeth at the hot pricks of affection, I raised myself and attempted to disentangle from their curious gnawing. They circled me, nudging me and gnawing on various parts of my body. I barked at them whenever they came to close to trampling my ankle, and they soon learned to approach it cautiously. They gave the bandages and splint curious sniffs but did nothing more.

I watched them, seeing my past self in their movements. Nostalgia welled up within me, but I kept my face clear. The direct traces of Kizuato-san and Hana-san were evident, but so were flickers of Utau-kun and Ashi-chan. My throat grew hot, but my chest grew warm as my family grew larger by two.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kizuato-san standing over Teru-kun, ears and tail erect. I couldn't make out his words with the pups' mewlings, but my brother's raised fur and grudgingly lowered gaze whispered of a deeper argument.

Moments later, Hana-san's soft growl called the two pups to her side. I glanced around, seeing that the pack had taken their position for the ceremony. I too stepped back, taking my place beside Teru-kun as Kizuato-san shook himself and stalked away.

I looked up at my brother, but he kept his gaze on his father. I knew this wasn't the time to ask.

Kizuato-san padded to the front of the pack, positioning himself in the patch of moonlight that broke through the clouds above. He looked around at the pack, his chest puffing out as he undertook the role all alphas have done since the beginning of time. There was no speech as the humans tend to do to mark such occasions: wolves were smart enough to understand what needed to be said. We didn't look to the past: we only reckoned the future.

Hana-san nudged the pups forward. They slunk up to their father, tails hanging low, but heads held up proud. They stopped in front of their father, the eyes of the pack resting upon them. Kizuato-san blinked, and the tradition began.

Our alpha lifted his nose to the moon and let out a bone-shaking howl. The noise rose over the land, filling every nook and cranny, running through the very fabric of life. The notes bounced back to us off the crags and peaks, altering in pitch just so slightly to make a different song. Though my ears could no longer pick up their sound after a few moments, I knew the notes had not died: they had just begun their journey around the world.

Kizuato-san looked down at the pups and swished his tail. The two girls fidgeted in their seats, but the brown one acted first. She lifted her nose and began a crackling whine that chimed through the air like a bell. Hana-san's tail wagged as the notes bounced back, their pitch altered to a deeper boom that foreshadowed the adult howl to come. The lilting tones bounced against one another, creating the name of the brown ball. The wind bore it back to us, and the pack shifted as the jumble of consonants was bestowed.

I kept the frown from my face, but I wasn't able to distinguish anything from the echoes. I looked to Teru-kun, but his expression revealed nothing. Rubbing my ear, I wondered if it was just my weaker hearing failing me as Kizuato-san shifted.

'_Miyako_,' he murmured, looking down proudly at his daughter. The brown pup only flicked her ears, not understanding the importance of her own name. She looked to her father who, with a snort, settled her back down.

The grey one's head lolled from her father to Miyako and then to the moon. With a deep breath that looked more like a sigh, she began her own howl. It was quiet, but strong. The bass notes already made my ears ring, and the echo was like clashing of thunder. And so too came her name: Kotone.

Kizuato-san looked at his pups as the notes drifted to the lands beyond the mountains. Emotion filled his tired eyes – a fire rekindling. He licked the brown one across the head, and did the same to the grey pup. _Miyako. Kotone. Welcome to the pack. _

Our alpha lifted his head and sung into the night. Baying his booming tones, the rest of the pack joined in with their own yips, barks, and howls.

Bliss burst within me, and I released it all in a joyous cry. My eyes grew wet as I heard our voices echo back to us. The reverberations of our pack were the voices of our ancestors and family: I could hear Utau-kun and Ashi-chan cheering alongside us. The pack – all of the pack from when wolves first walked this earth – were howling here together as one. We were deafening.

I closed my eyes, those strings palpably vibrating even beyond the veil. Then their shaking grew stronger, harsher. I frowned, realizing that the echoes seemed to be growing stronger, doubling back on themselves, lasting longer than they should. They fractured upon themselves, reforming only to break again, repeating the same words over and over.

I glanced around, but it seemed only I had noticed anything. Teru-kun glanced at me, ear flicking in question, but I turned away. His questions were drowned by a voice I knew all too well. The wolf of all wolves. I looked to the heavens and knew. '_Ka-san?'_

But the only response I could hear were the words: '_Trust them. Trust them. Trust them. Trust them. Trust them.'_


	16. Chapter 16

I frowned at the green sprout before me, a curious apprehension swimming lazily in my chest. Fear restrained me, but I couldn't ignore the urge to brush the pulsating strings that intertwined, overlapped, joined and broke as imperceptible movement made that sprig of grass grow. This urge was more than whimsy, more than engrained habit – something within me bemoaned this feeling of isolation. But I hadn't done anything of that nature since- since-

I wrinkled my nose and nestled into Teru-kun's side. I yawned from a night that had dragged on until the rest of the pack had fallen asleep. I stared up at the snowcapped peaks around this meadow, taking in the trees as my brother's warmth seeped into my bones. I soaked up this warm contentment knowing that it might be a while before I ever felt it again. I needed to head back soon.

A storm was churning overhead, creating a wall not even the moon could penetrate. I blinked, watching the last of the stars be swallowed by this black demon, Ka-san's words tolling in my mind like a bell. Along with my dreams and Yuuta-sama's words, they seemed to be pointing to making peace with the shinobi.

I growled, shoving back a few loose strands of hair. '_Death will never be one of my pack.'_

_'Something wrong?'_Teru-kun growled, shifting to look at me.

I frowned and shook my head. He cocked his head at my weird motion and jested, '_You humans and your weird ticks.'_Teru-kun barked and nibbled on my hair, filling it with that sticky saliva.

I forced him off with a sharp shove of my hand.

_'Well, speaking of humans,'_he sighed, nudging me again. '_It's time for you to go back. Before the storm hits.'_He lowered his head, offering me to clamber on his back.

I glared at him, not enjoying this pitying gesture. Still after a minute's squabble, I ended up being lifted and placed on his withers.

He silently padded through the woods as I rocked along his back, swaying myself into a painful stupor as my ankle kept snapping at my nerves. There was a light pitter patter as rain began to tumble down the leaves, soon reaching us and the underbrush. I frowned, not enjoying the icy cold snapping at my skin as well as the fire gnashing at my ankle.

Wimping out, I threw my hood over my face, scrunching it tight around my cheeks. I shielded my cane under the cloak, brushing any droplets from its smooth surface. I leaned forward and softly patted Teru-kun's neck, sympathizing with him though I knew he'd be confused: unlike with humans, rain never really bothered wolves – it was just accepted as something natural and to be expected.

Of course, Teru-kun responded with a confused flickering of his muscles. '_What?'_

I grinned and buried my face into his thick fur, absorbing his warmth. My smile winked out though as I remembered what had happened at the Naming. '_Teru-kun,'_I growled into his back, '_what's between you and Kizuato-san?'_

His muscles tensed as he stiffly padded up the slope. His response was not in ways translatable to human's words but I knew humans felt them – all those at the shrine had this calling too. Teru-kun didn't have to say anything for me to sense the growing urgency in his bones – the _need_calling him. I felt it too. We knew there were lands beyond this mountain, and one day I had planned to travel throughout all of them. But that day was meant for a Mira who could walk.

I gave a soft whimper, but he gave a light snort. '_I'm not leaving you, little flea. There is business to finish first.'_

I dug deeper into the night of his fur, burrowing into his oaky scent. I was lulled to a painful, wet peace, and let my mind drift. I stretched out my mind again, worming my way through the funnel those beads placed around me, and just sensed. I sensed life moving out there, pulsing and twisting, growing and dying. I could feel the essences of individual creatures now. I knew a rabbit bounced its way into its home a few yards from here. I could almost see the howl hunkering beneath a branch as it tried to stay dry a dozen yards just above us as the tree itself glowed with pure energy.

I watched that oak, in awe at the beautiful interlacing of younger, more fragile threads amongst the thicker, cores that braced its existence. I traced one of the tiny threads, tracing its path in and out of is brethren before it burst into a thousand-fold more to create single, budding leaf. The stronger chords shone brilliantly, full of the life that created this being.

I still couldn't believe it had taken me this long to realize the complexities of the threads within living beings. To recognize the very needlework that comprised each and every one of us. While nonliving things had relatively basic patterns – repeatable, possibly even learnable – every living creature held its own unique patterns that comprised its existence.

As for myself, I never had looked or would look. For some unknowable reason, I believed that nightmare was a warning. The one where I was covered – no, _was _disgusting muck. Amongst other things, I took that to mean if I turned this sight onto myself, I'd only hate what I'd find. And I didn't need to hate myself more.

_Besides, _I thought, looking at the ethereal brilliance that comprised Teru-kun's existence, _there's enough to see. _

Something like contentment settled into my wear frame. But it didn't stay for long. I caught something curious at the edge of my recognition. Some form a lot more complicated than that rabbit or owl or even the tree. It was too far away for me to recognize a general shape, but it was pulsing like a living thing, but the energy within it was also contorting, frothing, writhing. It looked like the flow was almost stopped within it, as if the creature had some control over it and was damming it up.

I opened my eyes when I realized what it must be. I kept my muscles in seizing from panic, from making any sound, in order not to alert Teru-kun. Emotions blazed through me: terror, hate, and helplessness. We were heading in its direction, and I took a deep sniff to see if I could sniff its putrid odor. My weaker senses dredged up nothing. But any second now Teru-kun could catch its scent. I could only hope that the rain would drown the smell.

That's when my brother jolted to a halt. I bent over my ankle, its nerves electrocuting me as a hiss left my lips. As I recovered, I caught his ears erect and flicking. His nose to the wind and rain as deep breaths filled powerful lungs and exited as hot steam. His muscles filled with pounding blood and adrenaline, and a roar blossomed in his chest. He lowered his snout, his frailty only adding to his savagery.

I buried my fists in his fur, shaking as bloodlust curdled with fear. Teru-kun took a step forward. I yanked at the rough hair, snarling,_ '__NO!'_

_'It's them!'_Teru-kun gnashed. '_Death is here!'_He threw up his snout and let the roar rip from his throat, shattering even the thunder above with the call of the hunt.

He bolted from his stop, nearly throwing me off his back. I just managed to latch onto his fur as he tore through the woods, whipping through underbrush that savagely raked both him and me. Something smashed into my shoulder, reigniting that old wound only for another branch to bash me on the skull. Yet all that pain was only secondary to the screaming of blistering bone in my ankle as it hammered his side, the splint somehow bearing the brunt of the force.

In the haze of searing pain, I didn't even realize that my brother had crested a hill, stopping only to dislodge me with a quick shake. He smashed his fangs at me, snarling '_Stay out of it!', _but I could see his own goodbye in his eyes. But those searing embers burned that look and any other emotion besides hate away. He turned and dashed down the hill.

I shook myself, heaving my dinner onto the dirt as I staggered onto my good foot. I barely recognized that my cane was gone, bucked off and lost somewhere in the woods now. I was just completely engulfed by the knowledge that my brother was sprinting off to die.

"NO!" I screamed. Desperation slammed numbness into me, and I toppled forward. My ankle gave out and I fell to the floor, not acknowledging that stones carved into my cheek, gouging out flesh just an inch from my eye. I clawed my way forward through dirt that was swiftly mixing to mud in this rain, crawling to the edge of the hill.

Chest heaving, I looked out to only see darkness ahead, hear the thunder above, and smell the mud covering my face. All senses were useless to me except for one; it was faint, but I could sense him out there in the storm-broken night. I could sense him out there, and I knew he had found them. I could sense him out there, and I could feel his chords fraying, snapping, dying.

"Teru-kun!" I screamed into the night, shoving myself forward. I rolled down the hill, smashing to a halt against a heavy trunk. The breath knocked out of me, I quaked as I snapped my muscles to self-shredding obedience. I shoved myself onto my feet once more, knowing that my brother would die without me.

I wasn't conscious of running, or perhaps I wasn't even actually conscious as I ran. I blinked, yet darkness or leaves was all that I saw as I tore through the undergrowth. I could feel my brother just ahead, just a hundred yards more, when I heard his shrieks of pain. That's when a thicker strand – and the millions of tiny ones branching from it – shattered into oblivion.

Despite my distance, I unconsciously dove, trying to grab the strings to force them to stay together, but an icy wall smashed back my attempts. Snarling, I tore at my breast, feeling the prayer beads hot in my clutches as I yanked and kept yanking at its steely embrace. Unable to remove it, I was forced back, my energy restrained. Vindictiveness raged through me and I focused on what I could seize – a thick chord running through the earth. With savage swipe, I snapped it in two and-

BOOM!

The world exploded in front of me, knocking me backwards into another tree trunk. Dazed, I blinked and shoved the tattered hood off my forehead. I blinked again. The forest had torn open in front of me. I shook my head, lurching to numb feet as forms winked in and out of vision. Shouts and cries and yelps raced through my mind as I recognized that the very earth had been gashed from the ground.

My vision winked in and out as if something was tickling the back of my mind. I shook my head and blinked, ignoring the exhaustion that now hung from my bones. Something within me quaked, and I thought that maybe my muscles were quivering from the blast; but then I realized that a primordial realization was building in me. The one where you know you had stepped over a line that never should have been approached.

But one look at my brother, and I cared about nothing else. His figure was now revealed before me, his form tied to the ground by an unnatural tangle of branches that had fastened each of his limbs. His snout was dripping red blood, but it wasn't human's blood.

A blow hit my chest, my stomach heaved once more, as I realized what that chord breaking meant. His eyes. They weren't there.

It was a fury more than fury, a rage greater than rage. Something transcendent filled me – some would call it delirium. It filled every fiber in my being as my eyes flashed to Death who stood in front of my brother. The whole of my rage, my focus fixed on her, gouging past her flesh to see the too-pallid threads below. Revulsion and even deeper hatred filled me as I saw something black and pulsing there, twined into her own threads like some sort of parasite. A primal disgust and hate separate from before roared within me as I focused for the kill.

Two figures from her side darted towards me, another two lifting weapons to my brother, ready to swing them down. But I could only look to Death as she gave me a simpering smile and lifted her bloodied kunai, a piece of my brother's pupil still fresh on its tip.

I grinned back at her and ripped through her chords.

She let out a grunt. There was no blood. There was no cry of pain. My eyes narrowed as nothing seemed to happen – nothing except that black thing within her flare, oozing something out to protect her. All that happened was her smile got bigger.

"Oh? Someone fiddling with chakra?" she gnashed, a sickening laugh escaping her lips. Her eyes grew matte as she ordered, "The seal is ready. Kill her."

The two shinobi running towards me had already launched their kunai at me when they heard the word "kill". Before I could register anything, I could see the sharp blades three feet away from my chest. Two. One.

Clang. Clang. Thud. Thud.

I blinked, wondering if I had become numb to even being impaled. I frowned and looked down at my torso, unbloodied and un-gouged. Glinting metal caught my eye and I saw four kunai lodged into the trunk behind me.

When I looked back forward, the shinobi had become blurs – blurs that had grown from five figures to seven. Sharp ringing filled the air as metal smacked metal, but the whole scene was eerily quiet, as if I was simply watching flames twist in their deadly, ornate dance. But beneath those weak senses, that tapestry was quaking – shaking, fraying, _rebuilding_ in a manner that snapped me out of my stupor.

Gasping, I staggered forward, my weight cracking a twig in half as I dropped to my knees. The soft pop had the effect of a thunderclap – every shinobi leapt back and froze. I could see Death and her squad to my left, and the two newcomers to my right. Two on the left were freely bleeding, one hunkered over a fatal wound to his thigh. Death herself had a long cut along her neck, mirroring the one along her cheek.

The two on the right were younger. Much younger. My age. The weapons in their hands were bloody – their own flesh unmarred. The one with black hair and goggles was panting deeply, a confused look on his face. The other remained steady, features hidden behind a mask that covered half his face, grey unruly hair nearly covering up the rest. But his eyes were sharp – too sharp.

I curled my hands into fists, raised my chin, and met each of those shinobi's eyes as they stared at me, weapons raised, ready to attack.


	17. Chapter 17

I didn't even recognize that I was shaking until I realized that everything seemed to be bobbing oddly before me. I blinked, trying to stifle twitching ignited by exhaustion, pain, fear or all three. Hunched over, I forced my lungs to fill with a deep breath as my nails curled into the dirt, raking up wet, muddy soil. The earth oozed through my fingers, steadying me as my fangs snapped together, and I drowned all thoughts but one: _Wolves do not show fear. _

I blinked and glared at them, lowering my gaze to none of them. They stared at me, eyes cold and calculating. Only Death let a smile flicker on her lips as her eyes darted spasmodically from my eyes, to my ankle, to my prayer beads, and back to my gaze. The shinobi seemed to have almost forgotten about each other until-

"_You_'re the jinchūriki?" the kid with the goggles grumbled, his mouth curling with a frown. Though muttered quietly, the voice rivalled a thunderclap's force in the tension.

The shinobi wheeled back on each other, only glancing in my direction to make sure I wasn't moving once again. The goggle kid's partner – that grey-haired one – didn't say anything, didn't turn his gaze from the others, but his rebuke was palpable.

Death's pallid flesh spread apart, revealing a set of yellow teeth as a dry laugh rattled out of her chest. She lowered her own weapon and turned to her fellows, motioning towards the boys. "Is this who the Leaf sent after us?" she simpered in that sickeningly, high-pitched voice. "Kids?" Her neck cracked as she let her head fall to a shoulder. "I know they had lost some battles, but this is scraping the dredges of their Village. You two kids just genin?"

Anger visibly etched itself along the lips of the kid with goggles. He moved to say something but stopped, glancing at the other as if he had said or done something. I looked at that grey-haired one, seeing his own reaction being a readjustment of his sabre.

I watched the shinobi tense and flex before me, kept a careful appraisal of them, but looked to my brother. Blood dripped from his eyes, staining even his midnight fur with visions of scarlet comets. His chest was heaving frantically, his ribs nearly tearing past his skin. But his screams had faded to a terrible silence – the void of sound worse than any cry of pain.

Still, he was chained to the ground by that unnatural amalgam of roots and vines that wrapped tightly around his snout, his throat, and each limb. I could sense the snarling of the cosmic threads, the ethereal force behind Teru-kun's prison that had bent nature to its perverse will. And I knew who had done this: the threads reeked of her chakra.

Something seized my throat, lodging there like a cry that could never escape. Blood welled in my mouth as teeth dug into a lip that had mistakenly lodged itself between the bones. And I began to scratch. Scratch at that aberration of the universe: scratch away her chakra which had twisted the tree's roots, loosening their grip just enough to set my brother free, let him escape as I would distract the rest.

My eyes jerked to Death as she snorted, thinking she had sensed my actions. The sound was reminiscent of a babe being choked, but her gaze was trained onto the two foreign shinobi. She languorously stretched her arms in front of her, reminding me of a diseased animal trying to drag itself somewhere to die. "Just to make it easier for us, little genin," she mewled, "why don't you tell us where the rest of your little team is? I'm assuming there are two others, one of them probably being just a chunin for a leader."

They remained silent.

Her arms dropped to her side – the animal falling dead – as she groaned, "But honestly, I expected more out of the Leaf. I don't even know what's more pathetic? These kids or that arthritic missing-nin?" She glanced at me, clucking her tongue. "Your friend. The scarred one."

I paled, each banging of her tongue slamming into me like a hammer. _They have Akio-senpai. _Rocks tore into my hands, piercing calloused flesh and reaching blood, as I pushed myself up and glared at them all.

A corner of lip curled into a smile, her flaxen hair falling over a pale eye. Behind her, one of her companions – the one wearing the rabbit kabuki mask – muttered something and another agreed. She turned an ear to them and challenged, "What? What did you say?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rabbit jerk his kunai at the grey-haired one. "Isn't that the Fang's boy?"

Her eyes swirled onto the boy, her skull opening once more to reveal those sickened teeth. "Oh, really?" A gnarled hand rested on bony hip. "Guess we did find something more pathetic."

He said nothing. Made no move. His hands didn't even shake.

I blinked, refocusing myself on the true task at hand. With the shinobi distracted, I focused on Teru-kun's distant bonds and began nudging, pulling, prying at those tangled chords. From my distance I could see the wood bend and quiver, obeying its puppeteer. I just had to loosen the threads just enough for him to slip through a gap.

A slip of thought caused a branch to cinch his paw, yet my brother only gave the lightest of whimpers. '_You shouldn't have come, Mira-chan. Run! RUN!'_

I bared my fangs but made no vocal response. I continued to rake back the universal twine, clearing the world of Death's sickness. Just a few knots left. Only a few more nooses needed to be loosened.

My eyes flicked to the unchanged situation in front of me. Sword raised, the masked boy met Death's gaze as she gloated, "The kid of the disgraced shinobi. One so contemptible even he recognized how he disgraced the name of shinobi."

His eyes narrowed, his cold gaze turned dark. He gripped his weapon, shifting it just slightly as he took a step to his left – a step between Death and me. The goggle-kid followed his lead, keeping a protective position not unlike the style of our pack.

Death tapped the scar along her cheek. "I never got to thank your dear dead daddy for this. Maybe you can tell him for me when you see him." A kunai dropped into her hand.

Grey Hair only lowered in his stance.

Suddenly, a shinobi – one wearing a demon's kabuki mask – leapt from the woods, landing between Teru-kun and Death. He held a bandage to his arm – one that was already leaking a steady stream of cardinal – with the hand hung pale and limply below. The limb was already dead.

His figure crumpled in on itself – injuries unseen crippling his body. He made a noise – a sound half between a cry and a moan. He made it again, trying to shape the sound into words. "Th-the others," he gutted out. "Yellow Flash."

Death didn't blanch as fear strangled her. She made no visible sign of distress, but her voice caught on its own edge as she snarled, "Get her. Now."

I met her eyes and grinned. With that, I plucked the last knot, and Teru-kun exploded from his cage. Before the shinobi could act, my brother sank his teeth into the injured one closest to him. Guided by only sight and sound, his actions were sloppy but forced the shinobi to leap away or be crushed by his monstrous weight or ripped by slashing claws and gnashing teeth.

I saw Rabbit leap for my brother's throat, dagger drawn but I yanked at his threads. While none snapped, he was thrown back and slammed into a tree. I could hear bones breaking – feel a few of his chords fraying – but I hadn't incapacitated him. The shinobi slumped to the ground unconscious.

The feeling of exhaustion reared its ugly head, biting its fangs into my shoulder. I staggered as the beads on my chest grew cold, heavy, wrenching me to the floor. A lightheadedness took over, making my vision quaver. Snarling, I shook my head as I saw another masked shinobi shove a blade into my brother.

Sloppily, I smacked towards his essence and sent him bashing against a boulder as a fierce rain-taloned wind shrieked through the clearing. The wind howled at me, angered that I had disturbed its journey, but I only had eyes for the shinobi who slumped, spitting out crimson.

Before I could run to my brother, Death landed in front of me. I jerked back as she scraped at my coat with her yellowed nails, planting some strange square of paper on the wet leather. She jerked forward, nearly quicker than comprehension, and caught my neck from behind and stung me with something. Stumbling, I clawed at her forearm, trying to rip out of her flesh, as I marshalled another attack onto her essence.

"Don't even try," she hissed. "Just give me your Tailed Beast."

Suddenly, something shoved me from the side, and I was thrown forward. Smashing my temple against bark, I shakily turned back to see the grey-haired kid holding his own against Death – trading blow for blow, metal ringing as brilliant white light streaked from his sabre.

Just as I took a breath, the goggled kid materialized in front of me. Good humor had disappeared; his teeth ground against one another, eyes steely with determination. "Here!" he snapped, as he lunged at me with his kunai.

I jerked out of the way, leaving his only victory to be a torn shred of leather hanging off the edge of his knife. I met his almost incredulous stare with pure hatred as I caught onto his essence. Exhaustion slowed my attack, saving him.

Before I could do anything, the masked kid bolted past, and yanked him out of the way. "Jump!" Grey Hair commanded and both leapt into the trees, barely missing the frothing fangs of my brother as he snapped wildly, tearing into the bark of the trunk just where their legs had been.

Teru-kun twisted, and the other shinobi leapt out of his way, grabbed their wounded, and followed the boys' examples and danced up the tree trunks until they had reached the lowest boughs of the pines. Out of my brother's reach, they all stared down at us. Death was up there too, framed by wind-stricken leaves, blinking down at me. For a moment, she looked up and glared at Grey Hair and Goggles, and then signaled something to her companions.

Without another word, they disappeared.

The young shinobi didn't budge. The goggled one had his mouth open, eyes wide. The grey-haired, masked one simply stared at me, his brows still lowered in anger, his eyes sharp. His fingers were still wrapped around his blade, just barely trembling.

_But he isn't afraid, _I realized, nearly seeing the anger roll off of him. _That one is dangerous. _

I glared at each of them, twining their branch's essence with a thought, readying to snap the bough. I blinked as I tried to snap the threads only to find my focus slip. The effort was getting to me, the threads becoming shrouded from me. They were disappearing as exhaustion overtook me.

Separately from that, the stinging cut Death had given me was beginning to ache. To throb really, reaching down to tug at each of my bones. I swayed, the combination of the two proving too strong. I bit deeply into my cheek to keep myself conscious. With an eye on them, I growled, '_Teru-kun, I am here.'_

Out of the corner of my vision, I could see my brother's battered face turn to me, eyelids slack over shattered orbs. Blood dripped from his maw – both shinobi and his own. He dropped the mangled form of one of the masked shinobi, and the body fell to the floor with a squelch.

He lifted his nose in the air and sniffed. With the hesitancy of a pup, he shuffled and hobbled towards my general direction, stopping when his wet nose poked my back. A snarl curdled his lips as, pained, he helplessly snarled, '_I can still smell two of them. Where are they?' _It seemed even that light reverberation was too much as he dipped his head and whined.

'_The trees,' _I answered. '_In the branches.'_ I tried to shuffle over to him, but I couldn't even move. I murmured, '_There are more of them coming. Death said so. Leave.'_

My brother twitched an ear, a roar growing in his chest. '_We fight.' _He craned his neck back and released a hateful cry into the air, calling our pack to him. The torturous notes were flecked with his pain and loss. I stared at him, feeling the pit in my chest growing as my brother sealed our pack's doom.

I let a shaky breath slither out of my chest and looked up at those two shinobi. They stared down at me, expressions even more alert. I straightened up and lifted my chin at them. I opened my mouth and said, "Le-" My unused vocal chords caught on each other, forcing me into a fit of coughing. I bent down as my brother turned to me, another whine seeping from his lips.

'_Screw this human language,' _I gnashed my fangs.

I straightened up again and fixed my eyes upon them once more. The goggle-kid let a smile slip across his lips, a foolish little grin. The other simply appraised me. Again, filling my voice with the ferocity born of agony and terror, I commanded, "Leave."


	18. Chapter 18

Grey Hair stood still for a moment, before settling onto the branch with an audible sigh. Goggles glowered at him and then looked to me and Teru-kun. After a moment of debate evident with his shifting expressions, he settled into a crouch and crossed his arms. He opened his mouth once, twice, and then began, "Well, I thi-"

The other cut across him, using his voice for the first time. It was icy. "Dead, yet?" He rested his chin in a gloved palm, his eyes growing disdainful and almost bored.

Goggles whipped his head over to him, hissing something I was too tired to catch. All I got was the word "nice".

I blinked, feeling the incredulity and outrage slam into each other and jam the words in my throat. I let a growl clear my throat, doubling the excuse also as translation for my brother. His ear flicked, his snarled response tinged with a growing whine as pain built within him, '_They'll be dead soon. Don't talk to them, and don't do anything until the pack comes.'_

I grimaced, my brother's bloodlust souring in my growing exhaustion. I faced the ground and rubbed my eyes, trying to regain alertness before I turned to face the shinobi. '_I can't believe I ever liked them,' _I grumbled, looking up at them once more. '_The books lied.'_

"She's like Minato-sensei!" Goggles turned his staring from his partner to me, his bright expression made dim by his open mouth. He shoved a finger in my direction and, nearly shouting, slowly asked, "How'd you do that? Any of that, without using symbols?"

I frowned, both his dramatic actions and questions confusing me. Rubbing my now thundering temple, I narrowed my eyes at him and hoarsely snapped, "What?" but it sounded more like a "ah!" Glowering, I stretched my tongue in my mouth, trying to get its flexibility back. Months of muteness had taken its toll.

He spoke again, slower this time as if he were speaking to a child. Or someone who didn't know Japanese. "_How did yo-_"

My frown turned seething, the throbbing in my brain now a pounding. "I _heard _you!" I thundered, my words ringing clearly for the first time.

Grey Hair raised an eyebrow and blinked. Goggles straightened up, his lips flapping as he backpedaled into sounds too quiet and too bothersome for me to make out.

'_You good?'_ growled Teru-kun, sniffing in their direction.

I snorted in assent as I folded my arms across my chest, trying to hide the fact that I was pinching my skin now to remain awake. My whole body was throbbing now, especially my skull. I could feel the heat simmering off my own skin, and I could feel the sweat join the rain drip to down my own back. The world began to swirl in front of me as I grew more and more feverish. '_Until the pack comes,' _I told myself. '_Do not show weakness now. Stay awake until the pack comes.' _

"You can talk?" Goggles asked, his voice cracking with excitement. "Like, actually speak and understand? Thought the villagers said you were a wolf-girl. How'd you learn?"

I closed my eyes and rubbed my head, turning just enough away where I could ignore them but keep watch out of the side of my vision. Goggles continued to prattle on, every lilt in his voice the end of a question, but Grey Hair remained silent. His gaze was heavy on my back, and my lip puckered over a fang.

"I thought I said 'leave'," I let the words slither out of my mouth, venomous and spiteful.

Teru-kun growled a light warning to remain quiet.

Goggles muttered an "Oh! That's what you said earlier!" Meanwhile Grey Hair, contrarily, dropped his hand and leaned forward over the branch. Resting his arm upon a knee he stated coolly, "As soon as we leave, the Mist will kill you to get that Tailed Beast out. You'd think someone would recognize allies after being saved."

My neck cracked as turned to them. "_Saved_?" I jerked my chin at Goggles. "He almost _stabbed _me!"

"What?" Goggles exclaimed. "When? I was just trying to get the explosive tag off you!" He jerked a finger at patch of burnt grass where lightning had seemingly gouged.

I looked and saw tattered leather mixed with shredded bits of paper. My brows knit together as I searched back through my memory of all the old stories I had read of shinobi. A couple of hazy memories floated to the surface about future methods of warfare – possibly with just sheets and symbols alone. I bit my lower lip, reigniting the wound from earlier.

"Or blocking the kunai or Habu from getting you," Grey Hair added, leaning back in his seat and shoving back strands of wet hair that had sunk into his eyes.

My eyes turned to slits. "Why? You just asked yourself if I had died yet."

Teru-kun barked at me, '_Quiet! Don't talk with them. You said it yourself. They rely on deception.' _

I glanced at him, but that only worsened the roiling in my gut. The hatred and confusion of why this was happening, why any of my siblings had been killed, why Teru-kun was now blinded, why I had been crippled for life, why these damn shinobi had come – it all boiled up within me as my vision flickered to back as I shouted, "_Why are you doing any of this_?"

A wave of dizziness roiled over me. I hunched over, shaking my head and blinking. Slowly, the soggy dirt beneath me came into view as well as the rain dripping from my matted hair. I took in deep pants, trying to steady myself against this sudden fever that seared the very rain that fell upon me.

I heard Teru-kun's whine, but I shrugged him off. I twisted my face and glared at the two shinobi above me. They were both watching me – Goggles apprehensively and Grey-Hair bored.

"Be grateful," the latter murmured, his words chipped. "Other teams would have just killed you on the spot for being what you are and having done what you've done. That's what the town hired us to do. If Minato-sensei didn't order otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

I gritted my teeth, his icy tone tempering my boiling blood for a moment but then it came flaring back. My hip banged into the floor before I realized I had fallen backwards. Teru-kun stepped forward at my side, nearly crushing me with his paw, but stopped. He whined and sniffed at me, saying how I didn't smell right – that there was something wrong with me, with my blood.

I pushed myself up, curling into my legs and placing my blazing cheek on top of my knee. I tried to look up at the two shinobi but found that my vision was quickly dimming. Still, I could hear their voices as I strained against the dark, against the Nothingness.

"Why're you saying any of that?" snapped Goggle's voice. "How's she supposed to trust us now?"

Grey-Hair let out a 'tck' and grumbled, "If she was smart she should've realized. First, we can't kill her or we risk letting the Tailed Beast out. Second, she needs us to save her yet again because that jonin Habu-"

I closed my eyes, feeling my heart pounding against rattling ribs. _Poisoned me. Death poisoned me. _


	19. Chapter 19

_I will _slaughter_ Death, _I groaned as I clutched at my stomach, trying to shove stability into slippery innards. My organs were being pried out of place by jagged shards of glass. Nausea compressed my chest, and my breaths were only shallow gasps beneath the dizziness. Despite the torrent of sweat now filming my skin, the icy mud coating my limbs had turned blazingly hot. The pain somehow intensified as Teru-kun nudged my back. I yelped, and he jumped away, left whining and whimpering in blind ignorance.

_Breathe, _I told myself. _In, out. In, out. In, ou- _I lurched, my stomach heaving and shoving sticky, semi-solid spittle out my mouth. I hugged my knees, burying my face between the two frigid, bony peaks, and took in another ragged breath. _This is not how I die. _

'_Back off!' _Teru-kun's voice broke through. His pitiful whimpers had devolved to furious, rabid snarls and gnashing teeth. '_Now!'_

I glanced up, muddled vision affording me a vague impression of blocks growing closer. I blinked, yellow and brown the only colors I could discern in the growing black. Vaguely I understood that those two shinobi must be approaching me, taking advantage of my weakness. I knew I should have fought, should have bared my fangs, forced myself to my feet, fight them off with tooth and nail and those cosmic strings, but all I could do was collapse onto my side.

_Just breathe. Just breathe. _That was all I could do as my muscles snapped rigid, turning traitor in my moment of need. It was then that everything went numb.

I could no longer hear my brother's voice: my heart was now screaming for attention, battering the inside of my skull like a starved and desperate wolf. Shadows past over my fading vision, and I knew those blocks now hovering above me, that Grey Hair and Goggles. They moved, obscuring the whole of my vision. I was left alone in the dark.

In this netherworld of dreams and death, I could feel the outline of my soul, the misty edges of my being. The void swept past me, surrounded me, filled me. I knew this place. This chasm of Pitch. I had returned to the Nothingness, to the shore of the amatsukami.

And I began to run, reliving that dream, that nightmare. Yet this time there were no woods. No soft wet dirt caressed my toes. I didn't whip past a world of salmons, sapphires and topazes: I was simply moving through the black, the Nothingness, desperate to find the edge of nonexistence. To break through back my body. To escape from It. Only then did I realize I had stopped moving at all.

I knew the Entity was here – the Kami was everywhere and nowhere. I could feel It surround me, fill me, drown me as It crushed my soul with what I could only describe as emotion. But the sensations were so foreign – so inhuman, so incomprehensible. Here, I was merely a droplet in a storm-tossed ocean. Here, I knew I was dying.

I tumbled deeper into the ravages of eternity's edge as the Kami plucked at my consciousness, fine threads snaking around my essence to trap me here. Space and time weaved through me, pinning me in the Pitch, chaining me before Its being.

_What? _I shrieked at It, using every ounce of strength to claw at my binds. _Let go! _

My existence nearly shattered as what I could only describe as laughter blasted through me. The primordial cackle seared my being, flaying my soul, desecrating my innermost being. In that timelessness, an eternity passed before it stopped.

Images flashed through me. Memories of some night in the kitchen when Yori-senpai tucked his chin into his hands, smirking at me with that condescending amusement. But his eyes were different – colder, starker, as if was watching a moth flapping desperately into the flame. And I couldn't stop myself from drawing closer and closer.

I could only feel its message inside my core – as if my own mind was manipulated to create those images, make these thoughts so the Entity could speak with me on my lower level. _You, _the Kami flared,_ are the one mostly dead. _

The vision of Yori-senpai faded, only to be replaced by the vision of a doe's panicked eyes. It looked like it was crying, how the blood pooled around its orbs only to drip off its chin. Terror had drowned out the pain in those eyes, but the whole expression was punctured, making every emotion leak out of those orbs, leaving behind the dull sheen of death.

_So curious, _Kami fractured – narrating my thoughts in this darkness. _How that mortal flesh corrupts, that frail mind forgets. Even for you, the last to walk amongst the kamigami. _The Ancient Forest flashed in my mind only for a fog to consume it as I was drawn away. _How little you can mold the cosmos now. How weak the vessel has become. _

The memories faded, leaving me to face the Pitch. It was there somehow in that void. Its presence was there, was here, was nowhere. Incomprehension left me dumb as all I could do was strain at my bonds.

_Pathetic, _It branded, exposing everything that was me – stripping away dreams, memories, fears as the Kami toyed with me. _It shames Me that we are bound. You truly are the weakest yet. You are unable to even fathom me in my true form, let alone be fit enough to accomplish the task set before you._

A pit formed out there somewhere in the darkness. A pulsating, ravenous thing that tore away at the Pitch. It was invisible, but I could sense it out there, sense it both devouring and molding something in the dark. That was the best I could describe what humans call it, their own faded version of 'thought'. I writhed in my prison as It comprehended something, images of my younger self tinkering with the threads of the universe filling my mind.

_Mortality is truly the bane of existence. To think that I chained myself to your doom._ It paused, images of a distant thunderstorm over the mountains in my mind, before It scorned, _To think that the miko was once so great. _

Its presence intensified like gravity piling on top of me, as I remembered striving into the darkest depths of a lake. Yet the cold pressure was digging _in_to me, uncovering images of a crackling fire filled my mind and a hand reaching out. For a moment I thought it was the night when I first came to the shrine – when I thrust my hand into the flames. But this hand was old, wrinkles underlying the brutal scars that caked its flesh. Viciously, it flung scrolls into the flames, the flames flaring, expressing its satisfaction and greed in clicks and clacks. And just in that one moment, I could see them, the firelight bouncing off the simple wood like some sort of aura. Beneath the splaying sleeve, wrapped around that weathered wrist. The prayer beads. The pressure lessened, the image flickering before finally sputtering to darkness.

Yuuta-sama appeared in my mind, speaking as he gazed at the scrolls on his desk. The fire played sharp shadows across his face, flaring off his glasses. _"Strange, huh? I almost feel like they were destroyed on purpose, but why would the old priests get rid of any mention of their kami?"_ Realization burgeoned within me, and for a moment my constraints weakened. _It was a miko? _

For a moment the pressure returned, gifting me with the nightmare of the shrine crumpling beneath the weight of flames desperately clawing up at the sky to join the stores. The Pitch writhed around me as an undercurrent of primordial anger attempted to restrain itself. I nearly shattered as a hint of it crept into Its demand, _Pray to your Kami and tell me, what is your duty?_

As if gasping for air, I remembered Ka-san's words and let the thought leak out into the dark. _Be the link between men and kamigami. To remind humans of the kamigami they have abandoned for bloodshed. _

The hatred gave way to another of soul-shearing laugh. Terror plundered reason, and I found myself straining at my edges, already trying to fend off its essence. Yet as it quieted, I realized I could barely distinguish the Kami from me.

It paused for a moment, its essence coiling around me, and I could only see Habu-sama crushing the trunk of an old sapling like a twig. _Your task remains the same, _It hissed_. You must rid the world of the venom running in its veins before it reaches even the heavens. _

I stared into the dark, confused. I tried to form words, but I could barely hold together a thought. For some reason, it was getting harder now to be in the Pitch. I could feel my bindings lessen, even the Kami begin to fade.

_Though it appears you will be all for naught. _You _have been found first. _

I barely registered Its message. Mortality gouged my edges out from the dark, packing the heavy flesh back onto my essence. I grew cold, feeling like ice as I buoyed up from the Pitch and became substantial.

_Prove yourself here, _It rumbled, settling back on its haunches, letting me go without much effort. _Live. Perhaps then you may be worthy. Then we can begin._

I could feel my heart begin to beat again only to hitch and sputter. Nothingness faded to blackness. Then blackness faded to grey. Again I was in the dream as something appeared above me. It was just as in my dream; blurry at first, it grew closer – or rather, I came to it. Edges sharpened, forms defined, and a hand materialized above me, beckoning. Desperate to escape the void, I tried to snatch it, yet only could manage a weak twitch of a pinky.

The figure behind it was still too blurry to fully recognize. I could see that its mouth was moving. It was shouting something at me as it forced its hand closer. I watched it say words I didn't know as I could feel fear inspire strength. I moved an inch. Another inch. Soon, I was nearly grabbing the hand as the image sharpened. I could make out something blue on its forehead, something glinting. Yet its symbol was just obscured by grey hair.

Revulsion begged me to stay my hand, but in the dingy depths of my consciousness, where that desire for survival resides, I found myself just wanting to escape the Pitch. But then the dream's words came back to me. _Trust them. _My fingers met the gloved palm, and his calloused digits dug into my palm. I was brutally yanked to my feet and immediately released.

I staggered forward, stumbling over newborn's feet, and blinked. Sounds filtered through my ears, voices sharper than the ferocious thundering in the background.

"Rin-chan," Goggle's voice barked, "stay back! She's fine for now!"

A deeper, unfamiliar voice brokered, "Look, she's okay. We're not going to hurt you. We don't want to fight you."

"Mira-chan," Akio-senpai's voice snapped, "tell them something."

I blinked, shaking my head until I could finally see the light. See the shapes that surrounded me. See the rabid pack of frothing wolves circling us, fliting between the trees, awaiting Kizuato-san's command as he towered above me. The humans were grouped to my right, forming a circle with their backs to the center, their weapons drawn as they faced creatures who only knew hatred for shinobi. Creatures who were fresh from the death of pups, who had seen the infirmity wrought on Teru-kun, who had just seen me unconscious at their side.

I stood between wolves and shinobi, between nature and man. Swaying and semi-nauseous, I shuddered as all their eyes descended upon me, waiting for my action, my voice. I stood there, shivering, and realized I had no idea what to do.


	20. Chapter 20

'_Multiplying like rabbits,' _Kizuato-san thundered, his tenor tickling my innards. His amber gaze seethed, flickering with flames of revulsion and loathing. '_They enter _our _land? Continue hurting _our _pack?' _He let out a savage snap, popping my eardrums with the thunderous crack.

I rubbed my temple, my gaze finally steadying. I looked to where our alpha demanded death – seeing those humans arrayed in that defensive circle, so tiny yet unbelievably formidable. Grey-Hair and Goggles were the furthest from me, delegated to facing the swarming forest behind them, their blades in their hands. I could just make out Shizuka-san savagely gnashing frothing fangs before disappearing into the shadows, and I saw the nearly imperceptible tightening of knuckles around metal.

I blinked in surprise at two entirely new shinobi. One was another youth – a girl around my age. Two purple marks adorned her pale cheeks, defining a face framed by bobbed brunette hair. Despite her narrowed brows, her chestnut eyes remained soft and dewy like a pup's, yet the way she held her kunai betrayed another nature.

Her gaze flicked to me, and something like concern filled her eyes. Her lips pursed, but a snarling Isamu-san caught her attention before she could say anything.

The other was the immediate and true threat. This was no child. The yellow-haired man exuded a cool confidence, one borne of adaptation to the dangers of this world. His electric blue eyes examined the world, noting our weaknesses and strengths with the sort of intelligence so great it was nearly palpable. There was no tension in his form as he shifted his weight, taking in the state and position of his group with the innate ability of true alphas.

Yellow Man faced Kizuato-san head on, locking their gazes with full knowledge of the challenge he was presenting. Kizuato-san bristled behind me, coldly acknowledging the creature that barely reached his elbow.

But what had made Kizuato-san pause, what had stayed the blood so eager to be shed, was the appearance of priest of the shrine. Akio-senpai was closest to me, his back hunched, his hands quaking in age, but his breath steady just as if he was just whittling away at wood. He alone was focused on me, staring at me with those black eyes that – for once – were bright with life. His gaze was sharp as he met my own, and, in that instant, I truly realized the depth of our camaraderie. For in that look, I knew his thoughts, his stance on these new shinobi.

I tipped my head, letting him know that I agreed. _The enemy of our enemy is a friend._

My focus was stolen as my clothing was yanked back by a gust. I turned to see Kizuato-san snuffling at my gimp ankle. He let out a snort, ears twitching, and lifted his snout, keeping his eyes sharp on the shinobi. '_That marked one did something to you_,' he rumbled, baring his fangs at the girl shinobi._ 'Does it hurt?'_

I looked down, finally realizing that an icy breeze was grinding against bare flesh. The red fabric of my pants had been shoved up to my knee, exposing flushed skin that pimpled against the storm's gust. Yet the flesh itself radiated a warmth as if it had been exposed to the sun of a summer's afternoon – warm, comfortable…

_Healthy. _The word floated through a mind that had gone entirely blank except for the vision which was before me. The hideous bulge of shattered bone and mottled flesh – the one whose constant throbbing marked my existence so completely these past six months – had disappeared. It had sunk below unblemished flesh, noticeable only by a slight bump rising from calf and falling to heel. That tingling warmth was all that remained of the horror before, but it was just as if my nerves had fallen asleep, exhausted from blaring the constant signal of pain.

The rest of my body grew light as silent euphoria swept through my spirit. My eyes dampened, my throat closed. I tried working my lips but ended up only grinding my teeth.

"I-I couldn't heal it completely."

Stunned, I could only stare at the Marked One. The girl kept her focus on the woods, her training deeply engrained. Her face was set, but her tone buckled with what sounded like an apology. "It was too far gone," she admitted, a blush creeping up her neck. "And I'm still in training. It was the best I could do."

I gawked at her and tried to work my jaw. For some reason, the muscles had locked into place. And then I realized it was because I was beaming. A note beat against my ribs, banging at my chest before working its way out my throat into a rib-cracking, gut-busting laugh. I leapt into the air, feeling muscles explode with unrestrained energy. I kept bounding, soaring, twirling, propelling myself with muscles nearly lost to stagnation.

Grinning, I landed on two steady feet, feeling my ankle only give slightly with a twinge of pain. I realized all had frozen, gone silent, man and wolf alike. They all turned their eyes upon me again, but I couldn't stop smiling. I looked to the Marked One and dipped into the lowest of bows.

"Arigato!" I exclaimed, trying yet failing to wrangle my emotions down to a proper level. "Arigato!" Seeing that face of Akio-senpai, I gave a light cough and finally slowed my bouncing to a happy shifting of my weight. I gave one last bow and murmured, "Arigato, kunoichi-san."

Her face had fully reddened now as she tried to wave me off, kunai still in hand. "It-it was nothing," she stumbled over herself, cautiously keeping an eye upon Isamu-san who had sheathed her fangs and was merely panting now.

I cocked my head at the girl and at the rest of the shinobi, reevaluating them. _They said they were saving me, eh? There's no reason they would heal me otherwise… _

My attention was yanked as hot breath enveloped me, and I knew Kizuato-san was at my side again, sniffing at my ankle. He wrinkled his lips and pulled back up. Suspicion had replaced hatred as he watched the shinobi, his thunderous roars shifting to a lighter growl. '_She healed you?'_

I turned to him and gave a nod.

I could see the alpha turn these considerations over in his mind, debating whether his hatred of Death should extend to these shinobi as well. Unsure myself of these strangers' motivations, I didn't move to sway his opinion one way or another. Besides, he was the alpha: his decisions regarding these outsiders would determine whether they were accepted or hunted again.

Kizuato-san's ear flicked as he turned and barked. There was a shuffling and banging as a figure made its way through the underbrush, hitting nearly every branch on its way.

Teru-kun stumbled into the clearing, his head low. Shizuka-san nipped and tugged at his rear, directing him as if he were some sort of pup again. My giddiness broke, its surface cracking to reveal a boiling pit of ebony rage which fueled the soft hiss escaping my lips. The wounds over his eyes had already scabbed over, forming dark, faceted rubies that twinkled upon his black fur. The pain was evident even from my distance; at every movement, his throat clenched as he suppressed another whimper. I gritted my teeth, seeing our next alpha reduced to a creature that couldn't hunt, couldn't even walk, something equivalent to a newborn.

He straggled over to where Kizuato-san stood, bumping into his father's shoulder before stopping. Our alpha gently licked his son's snout, pain and enmity flaring in his burning orbs. '_Lie down,' _Kizuato-san murmured, and Teru-kun quietly obeyed. Our alpha turned to the Marked One and then looked to me. '_If they wish leniency from our pack, they must prove their intentions. Tell her to heal Teru-kun.'_

I dipped my head, accepting role as translator and turned back to the shinobi who had lowered their weapons on insistence of the Yellow Man. Correspondingly, the rest of the wolf pack stepped back a few paces, settling on their haunches to watch and wait.

The Yellow Man raised his empty hands, glancing from Kizuato-san to me. "We aren't here to fight you. We have no kinship with the Mist."

I met the Yellow Man's biting eyes and nipped the insides of my cheeks. I lifted my chin and murmured, "There's only been death and pain since your kind has come around. We'd like to stop it too, but you'll have to prove it further." I looked to Teru-kun and back at them, jerking my chin at the Marked One. "Have her heal my brother."

The Yellow Man looked down to me, his expression shifting as he reevaluated me. Though his gaze remained sharp, his eyes seemed to brighten. He turned to the Marked One and asked, "Rin-chan, is it possible?"

The Marked One kept her composure, but her doubt was evident. The pack shifted restlessly, smelling it in the air. Kizuato-san unsheathed a single fang, jolting the girl into action. She quickly explained, "I-I don't think I-I mean, I've trained once or twice with the Inuzaka clan but-" She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She gave a sharp nod of her head, exhaling an 'Mm'.

She stepped forward, but Goggles immediately tried to follow her with a "Ri-" However, Grey-Hair instantly grabbed his arm, holding him back as Yellow Man held up his hand, blocking the boy.

Kizuato-san, ready to snap Goggles in two, flicked his ear, his own appraisal of the shinobi shifting. I turned to the alpha and murmured, '_The Marked One doesn't think she can do anything.'_

The alpha answered me with the look of a broken soul. For those who could see, his response was plain: '_I expected so.' _He bent down and nuzzled Teru-kun's neck, ordering '_Stay put,'_ before taking a few steps back, allowing the girl to approach.

I moved to my brother's side as she approached. I knew what he was going to do. I could see the muscles writhe in his shoulders, his ruff bristling. He had no intention of letting a shinobi do anything to him. He had no intention of forgiving the monsters who had done this to him, to his brothers and sisters. He was just waiting now, waiting for his chance to snap the girl in half without care for the consequences.

I placed my hand on his snout and murmured, '_Brother, the enemy of our enemy is a friend.'_

The lowest note grew in his chest – the threat of a growl. His muscles writhed, coiling beneath my fingertips, as he readied himself to tear this human limb from limb. His chest heaved as he let out a hot breath, ready to tear this human to pieces. '_These are shinobi! They've killed Utau-kun and Ashi-chan. Their poison nearly killed Ka-san and killed most of the unborn pups. They've crippled you and have blinded me. What do you expect me to do?'_

'_Ka-san told me.' _I curled my fingers into his matted fur and murmured, '_Trust them.'_


	21. Chapter 21

The Marked One – the one the shinobi called "Rin" – approached my brother and I. She stopped in front of us, only a light sheen upon her brow betraying her nerves. She gave a light dip of her head, stating, "I'll do my best." When she straightened up, her gaze had hardened, her hands had steadied. She moved forward.

Teru-kun's muscles clenched beneath my fingertips, his ears flicked back. The rhythmic contraction of his lungs sped up, its conductor reaching a crescendo. His lips fluttered, fangs flickering into view, as he debated whether to release a deep baritone of hate or a falsetto of fear. I dug my knuckles into his straggled undercoat, both in reassurance and warning. One does not disobey the kamigami. While the rumbling stopped, I could still feel his heart pounding against its prison of ribs.

The girl settled into a stance before him. From here, I could see that while she was a bit taller than me – even a bit older than me – but she barely breached the height of Teru-kun's whiskers. She appraised my brother, eyes wide, and then turned to me. "He needs to remain completely still. I haven't worked on ninken in a while, let alone a wild wolf." She looked to my brother and added, "Can he lay on his cheek? I need to be able to reach both eyes."

I nodded and quietly repeated the instructions to my brother. He squirmed, yet a low rumble from Kizuato-san made him obey. I stepped back, moving next to the girl as Teru-kun settled on his right cheek, his hair poking at odd angles as it flattened. I put my hand upon his snout, surprised that even here I could feel the vibrations of his heart ramming his chest, doing its very best to shatter the bones and break free.

I glanced at Kizuato-san. The alpha was pacing, his amber eyes carefully taking in every movement of the shinobi. His tail swished behind him, his fur catching and tearing upon branches. He dug his claws nervously into the ground. For the first time ever, he looked trapped.

I ground my teeth, looking beside me at the Marked One. She had healed me – or at least, nearly so. There was still a twinge here and there in the bone – still a warning that it could collapse at any moment – but that pain was nothing compared to before. I put weight down onto my ankle, testing it again. A shimmy of joy worked its way through my nerves as it only lightly buckled beneath me. _How did she do it? _

For a moment, I entertained the hope that she could save my brother. If she could even slightly heal that desolation, then could she not help him? But, as I looked up at Teru-kun, as I stared at those oozing scabs – stared at where once those brilliant fiery eyes had been – I felt the limitations of reality settle upon me, upon us all.

_If she even plans to heal him, _a malicious thought tickled me. I gritted my teeth and realized I had begun shaking. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. I balled my hands and left it up to the girl.

The shinobi had already closed her eyes, her brows crunching as she gathered her focus. She raised steady palms, hovering them just beside the gouges that had been Teru-kun's eyes. The rest of us remained silent.

I bit the inside of my lip and watched her carefully, anxiously. Curiosity battled suspicion within me as I finally witnessed a shinobi molding chakra. It had once been a dream of mine to see this – to see another craft the elements – but that vision had long since sickened to a nightmare. Shinobi now symbolized danger; they only reminded me of Death. My muscles tensed, preparing to rip her to shreds in case she tried anything.

I watched as the sheen grew brighter across her forehead, beads of sweat forming like a crown upon her brow. Her nose scrunched, sending one or two down the sides of her cheeks like tears. I could see her jaw tighten, yet her hands remained entirely steady. Visibly, that was all that was happening. But beneath it all-

I took in a sharp breath of air. So it was true. Yori-senpai was right. I was like them. I was like these shinobi. Those universal threads – the ones that pulsed and comprised us all – did not solely obey my touch. This Marked One was gathering them, pooling them like liquid around her fingertips. Those threads huddled together, losing their edges to blend, mix, puddle together. The initial droplet grew and grew until-

I let out that breath of air. They had become visible. I could _see _them now. Everyone could. It looked like the air around the shinobi's hands had begun to glow, to shimmer, but the truth was so much _more_. The very fabric of existence had merged around her fingertips, the power building until it crudely revealed itself as light. This shinobi had just accomplished something even I could never imagine was possible; she had just exposed the undercurrent of existence.

Kizuato-san stepped forward, ears perked, fangs withdrawn, but I warned him back with a look. Teru-kun, his own anxiety doubled by what he sensed, let out a whimper. I squeezed him, reassuring him to silence.

I watched her intently now, memorizing every movement – every tug and pull she played out on the fabric-turned-liquid. I could see her molding it, shaping it into something as the light grew brighter. It took me a few moments before I realized what she was trying to do. She was sculpting the matter, copying the infinitely complex template of threads that had once comprised Teru-kun's eye. Borrowing from nature's essence, she was forming new threads and attempting to patch those that had torn at Death's kunai.

A pit opened in my stomach. _She can do this? I didn't even know this was possible. _I gritted my teeth and watched her attempt to connect the threads. _And _I _am the daughter of a kami? _

Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that the other shinobi weren't even watching the miracle that was occurring. They were used to this sight, this mastery of the cosmos's threads – mastery over what they called 'chakra'. They continued their careful appraisal of my pack – a caution not needed as the wolves had settled onto their haunches, watching what was occurring.

_What _are_ they? _I whimpered to myself, now truly recognizing the strength of a shinobi.

A gasp stole my attention as the girl stumbled backward. The light faded from the air, leaving my brother with some strings barely repaired, others still dangling. The girl's cheeks were flushed as she pushed back strands of wet hair, panting, "That's- that's the best I could do." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I could barely heal it."

I dipped my chin at her but turned to Teru-kun as he slowly got to his feet.

'_How do you feel?' _Kizuato-san whined, stepping forward and sniffing his son.

Teru-kun's ears twitched. '_It's all still so dark.' _He let out a gentle breath. '_But at least the pain is gone.' _He lowered his snout and lightly sniffed. Catching the scent, he lowered his head until he was level with the Marked One. He sniffed again, the action pulling back lips and revealing fangs that were nearly as large as the girl.

The girl was frozen to her spot, blanching as hair and clothes rustled in the gust. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grey Hair grab and hold back Goggles again, but they had nothing to fear. All my brother did was dip his head – a semblance of what I had told him was a human's sign of thanks and respect – and, upon raising his head, give the girl a gentle lick.

His tongue was easily as big as the girl, and when he stepped away, the girl was drenched with his slobber. The girl blinked, the gunk sticking to her eyelashes, as the muscles worked in her face. Emotions battled with one another before a watery smile broke across her lips as she gave a light laugh.

My brother's ears perked, and he gave a tired, yet happy swish of his tail. With that, he turned to the woods and made his way into the underbrush. Kizuato-san watched him go before turning to Isamu-san and ordered, '_Go with him._ _Lead him back to the den.'_

The grey wolf barked and got to his feet, bounding after my brother into the woods. Shizuka-san looked at Kizuato-san for her own orders, and the alpha motioned to the shinobi. '_We keep them from the pups and Hana-chan.' _He looked to me. '_Mira-sama, we will follow your lead.'_

I watched my brother go, feeling something ache within me, but turned back to the group. I gave a dumb human nod to our alpha's order and faced Yellow Man, entirely unsure of how to proceed.

The Marked One, "Rin", had rejoined her comrades as she wiped the worst of the slaver from her face and uniform. Goggles was grinning at her, trying to stop from laughing, as he leaned forward and whispered something. Grey Hair too seemed amused – or at least more at ease – as he appraised his comrade.

The Yellow Man was smiling at her, murmuring some light joke before he turned to me. The smile fell away, but the blue eyes remained soft as he stated, "I take that to mean at least he's feeling better."

I grinned and nodded. "Arigato again, kunoichi-san."

He gave me a smile in return. I could nearly feel the warmth radiate off him as his eyes softened and his form subtly relaxed. I crinkled my nose, not expecting my own body to follow his lead and unwind. I shifted uneasily on my feet

Taking advantage of the lull, Akio-senpai stepped forward, raising both hands. His graveled voice tumbled out, "My trust won't be won so easily, Minato-san, but we have our truce."

Yellow Man looked to Akio-senpai, his gaze ice. He clipped out, "You look a lot younger in the Bingo Book. Is this where you have been hiding all these years, Noburu-san? Or, do you still prefer to go by Shade of the Mist?"

I frowned, nearly everything he said going past me except for the growing tension in the air.

Akio-senpai straightened up, his hair looking much greyer as he stood in contrast to Yellow Man. "I abandoned that name a long time ago. I left the war, but I suppose there is no hiding from it." His brow darkened as he took the outsiders in. "Shinobi take it wherever they go." His eyes sharpened upon Yellow Man again as he growled, "So, why have you brought it here?"

Yellow Man paused a moment before answering, "We were contracted by the villagers of Ojiro concerning an incident a few months past. With the level of destruction reported and the presence of the Mist in the Land of Fire, we've made this a top priority."

Akio-senpai looked at the kids behind Yellow Man. "A bit young for a 'top priority', eh? Even if their jōnin is the Yellow Flash. Has the war taken that much?"

"I trust them with my life," was the response. It came out coolly, factually – there was no room to doubt his honesty. Yellow Man raised his hands, gesturing vaguely to the surroundings. "As you've seen, we are more than capable to handle any situation."

Akio-senpai tensed, prompting me to recognize the subtle threat in the words. I fidgeted, glancing at the other kids. They simply stood there, coolly appraising, simply waiting for a signal. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to remain still as well.

My pepper-haired senpai let out a sigh, running a hand along the scar in his scalp. He shook his head, and rumbled, "I'm too old to play these games." He straightened up, and carefully stated, "It seems the Mist will be formidable as well. The team is led by Habu-chan – a former protégé of mine." His mouth twisted as if he had just tasted something sour. "She will be ruthless," he stated carefully. "I suppose I taught her too well."

Yellow Man narrowed his eyes. "You were Habu's sensei?"

Akio-senpai crossed his arms, but gave a small nod. "Yes."

Yellow Man gave a sharp nod. "Good. Then you'll know her weaknesses as well as the Mist's team dynamics."

Akio-senpai remained silent but something seemed to harden within him. Grow cold. Dark. Territorial. I didn't know what caused it, but it had something to do with what Yellow Man had said. Silence welled between the two groups. Only the faint pit-pattering of a dying storm continued around us. A gentle wind rustled the leaves of the trees, sending a light cascade of wet droplets onto us.

I couldn't help but fidget again, feeling the tension return. But this uneasiness felt like it came from somewhere other than before – someplace deep, someplace ancient.

_Was this what the kamigami spoke of? _I considered, frowning._ Are things really this bad amongst humans? _

I was distracted when I heard Kizuato-san take a curious sniff. He shifted his stance, flicked his ears, signaling the arrival of something. A wolf's senses always being sharper, I quickly followed suit and looked to the woods. I sniffed and caught only the faintest, rain-trodden whiff of two new figures. I didn't need sight to reveal who they were – their scents felt familiar. I looked to the forest about a minute before the shinobi followed suit.

I glanced at Akio-senpai, trying to signal who was approaching. His brows furrowed in confusion, but when he heard the voices, he ran a hand through his hair and muttered something. The other shinobi readied themselves but paused as Akio-senpai waved them down; however, they only lowered their weapons when they saw who approached.

Yori-senpai's cold-induced nasal complaints had announced his arrival before he came into view. "Making me trek out here, carving a path for you! Now look here, I may not be as old as you, but I'm definitely not young enough to be doing this. I hope you pay up on your bet and do the sweeping for a week! When will you ever learn, old man? Only one of your dreams has ever managed to come true, and that's when Mira came. Don't confuse visions with senility! And what if there those shinobi are out he-" He stumbled out of the thickets and let out a soft 'Oh' as the blood drained from his face.

Yuuta-sama shuffled in just behind him, beaming like a child. He looked at us all – at Akio-senpai and me facing down a group of shinobi, three of whom were children, as two giant wolves lorded over us all with their immense bulk. His bleary grin grew wider, the wrinkles nearly covering his eyes as he let out a soft chortle.

Yori-senpai rubbed his eyes and muttering, "Is this real?"

Yuuta-sama stroked his beard and cheered, "Welcome! Welcome! We've been expecting you!" He clapped his hands and waddled over to the Yellow Man and patted him on the arm. The Yellow Man glanced at the touch but couldn't help but give a warm smile to the old man who was nearly teetering with age and blearily blinking behind inch-thick glasses.

"Now, let's get you all out of this storm," Yuuta-sama continued, looking at the rest of the shinobi. "Simply preposterous that we are all out here tonight, though the kamigami do enjoy testing us." His bright grin widened as he asked, "Now, let's have some introductions, and, perhaps if our new guests are interested, a nice warm meal?"


	22. Chapter 22

For all that was happening, the shinobi seemed to be perfectly in control. As if they all had known everything in advance, like someone had given them the script. Meanwhile I was still emotionally ricocheting from everything, barely registering the events as they occurred. The night was supposed to be simple: I would simply hobble off into the woods to celebrate the naming of the new pups only to return later, still hidden from Death, Teru-kun sill whole, and me still broken. Now as I glanced around, my breath coming in shallow and anxious pants, everything had changed. These new shinobi had come, but they had somewhat healed me, somewhat healed Teru-kun. With that, it seemed that some uneasy truce had sprung up between us.

_The enemy of an enemy is a friend_, I considered again.

I tried to keep the nerves from my face, but from the way Yori-senpai kept glancing at me, I knew I was failing. Yuuta-sama merely beamed at the Yellow Man, patting him on the shoulder before hobbling over to me. He looked me up and down, his smile growing brighter as he took in my ankle. Eyes twinkling, he lightly patted my shoulder as he gave another twinkling smile at Kizuato-san. My alpha's ears twitched back, a sign of respect.

Letting his sapphire eyes slowly scan us, the Yellow Man stood up straighter, seemingly more relaxed after Yuuta-sama and Yori-senpai had come into the picture. His pupils hovered over all of us but did seem to settle on Akio-senpai and me more than the rest of us. His golden hair bounced when he dipped his head in a bow and announced, "My name is Namikaze Minato. I'm a shinobi of the Hidden Village in the Leaves."

With a smooth twist of his hand, Minato-san motioned towards the girl beside him – the Marked One, the molder of the cosmos. My chest tightened, my eyes sharpened as I appraised her – this girl whose abilities surpassed my own.

"This is Nohara Rin," Minato-san spoke. "Our kunoichi and talented medical-nin." Rin's cheeks blossomed pink as she folded her arms behind her back and gave a timid bow. When she lifted her head, her lips were in a weak smile as she brushed her bangs back into the proper line. Her eyes seemed to dance lightly from Kizuato-san to me and to Akio-senpai as well; her teacher's training clearly had left its mark. Her innocent doe eyes met mine, and her smile faltered a bit before tentatively widening further.

I pursed my lips, unsure how to best respond. Suspicion and doubt flared in me again, clearly ignited by my wolfish upbringing and a natural suspicion of outsiders. All those stories I had read came flooding back to me – of all those mind tricks these shinobi knew to play. _Anything could be a lie, _I murmured in my mind. _But then why would they have saved me? _

I decided to play along and let the lightest smile tickle the corner of my mouth. Her eyes grew soft at that, and then she turned her gaze back onto Minato-san.

I took a second to glance at my own side. Akio-senpai was as incalculable as ever, stone where flesh should be. Yori-senpai was white and dripping sweat as if someone held a kunai to this throat. Yuuta-sama on the other hand was positively beaming with joy, not a suspicious thought in his mind. The wolves were merely panting, exchanging quiet looks between them as they commented on how long and senseless human interactions were.

My gaze was caught again as Minato-san motioned towards Goggles. Before he could say anything, the boy jammed a thumb against his chest and burst out, "I'm Uchiha Obito!" He gave a slight dip of his head as well, but his brilliant grin was almost too blinding for such a gathering. I blinked and even Kizuato-san shifted behind me at a boisterous enthusiasm that belonged to young pups. My tiny scrap of a smile grew as something within me responded to his energy, like he had punctured a festering boil.

The feeling didn't last too long however as Minato-san motioned to Grey Hair. I looked to the boy, finding him almost glowering at his comrade's zeal. "Hatake Kakashi," Minato-san introduced, "our youngest member." The boy frowned – the look visible in his lowered brows as his mouth was covered – and folded his arms over his chest: apparently, he didn't like that last little description. He made no bow.

Minato-san gave us a sheepish grin and stepped over to the boy. Grabbing the back of the kid's head, he forced the boy into a deep bend and muttered something to Grey Hair under his breath. Upon being released, Kakashi-san rubbed the nape of his neck, muttering, "All right. All right."

Minato-san gave us another apologetic grin and said, "Sorry about that. We've always emphasized respect as a fundamental tenet to being a shinobi." He didn't look at Grey Hair but rested a hand on his shoulder, his fingers squeezing. The boy only hunched his over further, turning his attention to the branches above us.

Kizuato-san shifted on his haunches and warned, '_Keep an eye on that pup.'_

I clicked my jaw in agreement but turned my focus to Yuuta-sama who was laughing it off. Our priest dipped his head. "I am Saito Yuuta. As these clothes probably have tipped you off, I am the chief priest of our humble, little shrine." His brows lifted in mirth as he took in the outsiders' expressions. "I see by your surprise that you probably didn't even know there was a shrine in these mountains."

Minato-san gave let a smile warm his features, but his eyes were calculating. He kept his voice jovial as he explained, "It's just rare for us to not be fully informed of our destination especially when it's essentially in our backyard."

Yuuta-sama shrugged his shoulders. "Most people these days seemed to have forgotten the kamigami." He lifted his hand to motion towards the jittering jumble of nerves to his right. "This is Shimizu Yori," he introduced.

Yori-senpai jerked upon hearing his name. He frantically looked at the shinobi and then seemed to realize something and turned his attention to the wolves as well. He was caught in a limbo between the two, teetering on a tightrope. He blinked rapidly, his bone-white face blushing as he tried to keep the panic from his voice. "Pleasure to meet you all," he murmured, his gaze flicking between the shinobi and the grizzled Kizuato-san. Rising from his bow, his pallor had become tinged with green.

I caught his eye and gave him an encouraging smile. His lips tried to assemble one in return but their twitching only made a mockery of the expression.

The motion of Yuuta-sama's hand turning towards me grabbed my attention. He gave a warm smile and stated, "I'm not sure if she's introduced herself already, but this is our miko, Mira-chan."

Azuumi-senpai's lessons jerked my muscles to action, and I lightly dipped forward. Straightening up, I flashed a look at Obito-san and Kakashi-san. "Arigato," I murmured, giving another light bow. "For earlier, I mean. I didn't get to thank you then."

Obito beamed back at me, folding his hands behind his back and puffing out his chest. The other kept his gaze to the trees above and didn't really give a sign that he had heard me. His eyes had gone dull from the fight; they hadn't lost their edge, just simply any vivacity in him had faded. I would've thought that he was being rude once more if I hadn't noticed his eyes scanning the foliage carefully. I realized then that while his comrades had taken to appraising us, he was tasked with eyeing our surroundings. This assumption was only confirmed when Akio-senpai shifted his weight. Immediately, all of the shinobis' gazes were searing into my senpai.

_Marked as the biggest threat, _I considered.

My senpai raised open palms and stated, "Off of what I said earlier, I'd appreciate it if you called me Akio."

Minato-san's eyes sharpened for a moment before he nodded in acceptance.

I, on the other hand, kept the frown from my face. I had noticed it before but didn't have the leisure to consider what it meant. It was obvious that these shinobi already knew my senpai, even calling him another name. _What was it? Nabru? Navoru?_ I shook my head. _Whatever it was, it sounded like they wanted to kill him. _I couldn't help a quick glance at Akio-senpai. He didn't return the look, but I could see the corner of his mouth twitch under my scrutiny.

Yuuta-sama had noted the underlying tension as well, but the way he maintained his composure implied that he wasn't surprised. He simply gave a light cough into his hand and wrangled the attention back onto himself. "Well, now that's out of the way, let's get you all some food. If you'll follow Yori-senpai." He wobbled over to my other senpai who had broken out of his fear enough to start chattering protests.

"Not again," he moaned as the old man nudged him in the back. "I'm telling you I have no idea where we are. We'll just get lost going back."

The chief frowned. "Didn't I tell you to keep track of where were going?"

"I did," the younger man muttered. "But then I got distracted with all-" He glanced around at all of us. "Well, _this _and I may have forgotten."

Yuuta-sama pursed his brow and started playfully reprimanding the nervous wreck. He couldn't really get too many words out though as he kept gleefully chortling, looking just as happy as the day he first met me. Not for the first time, I questioned his rationality. The expression on Yori-senpai's face hid no such judgement either.

"Well, we'll figure it out!" Yuuta-sama called. And with that, he began to totter through the woods. Yori-senpai darted in front of him to shove back branches and roots for the old man, muttering as he did so.

I groaned as I watched the two go in the wrong direction. I stepped forward. A rush went through me as I could actually take a step without immediately collapsing to the ground as a bawling wreck. The squeak of pain as the bones rolled was ignorable especially after I realized that all the shinobi moved subtly to match my movement, reorienting themselves to the group. I glanced at them but made no further comment. Still, I turned to my sensei and senpai and called out, "To the right!"

Without fanfare, they changed direction. As I turned back to the rest of the group, the hair on my arms was already rising. Tension was simmering in the air. Akio-senpai was looking to the shinobi, some subtle game playing out between the two. I only caught on to what it was when Akio-senpai sidled up beside me, giving me a little push with his elbow. "Go," he murmured – a voice so soft as to make me question whether I had just thought it. However, his sharp eyes only confirmed the message.

I walked into the woods after the duo, feeling Akio-senpai close on my heels as he sacrificed his rear in order to stay close to me. I snuck him a glance as we broke through the first of the underbrush, and he took advantage of the crackling branches to whisper, "Keep the wolves close if you can."


	23. Chapter 23

Though Kizuato-san was out of sight, his bone-rattling command cracked through the woods. '_Pack protects pack. We'll maintain a patrol at all times around the shrine until these outsiders leave alive or dead.' _Barks like thunderclaps echoed back. While I could feel the wolves pace alongside us, I could neither hear nor see them. Hopefully, the shinobi couldn't either as the filed behind Akio-senpai and followed us into the woods.

The forest here with thick and treacherous to those who were unfamiliar with its layout. The brambles eagerly would snatch at clothing just as well as skin, but in the fierce lashing of the storm, it was like being gouged by writhing snakes. I even stumbled once or twice – though I blamed my bum ankle as it gave out beneath me – but I didn't mind. I could walk. I could _walk_!

My cheeks crunched as I grinned to myself. I looked down to my plodding feet, relishing the fact that I could hobble faster than a snail now. I let myself have this one bit of happiness in a night so tempestuous as to rival the storm above.

"Mira." The otherwise silent trudge was broken by Akio-senpai's whisper. He knew me too well to even bother considering that I hadn't heard him. Within a second, he continued, "I won't be able to talk to you too much at the shrine so listen carefully to me now. Say nothing about yourself or your abilities to them. We may be in a truce with them, but we don't trust them. They've already seen a lot but keep your explanations to a minimum. If the Leaf know what you can do, they'll become as dangerous as the Mist."

I let out a shaky breath, acknowledging his words.

"Yuuta-sama will take care of the rest," Akio-senpai grunted and drew back, not risking being overheard further.

Meanwhile, the march dragged on. Occasionally I'd bark out the proper directions to Yuuta-sama and Yori-senpai who did their best to guide us in the pitch. As brambles and thorns cut into my skin, I found my thoughts circling around these outsiders, occasionally snapping to try and pull away more answers. But I couldn't shred away the lies to meet the bone – I couldn't uncover anything new.

All I knew was what they had told me or spoken to each other. Grey Hair had claimed that the town I had destroyed had hired them to get rid of me. _But should I even trust that? _I considered, thinking back to those old stories. _Is it some trick? _I considered the actions of the other boy, Goggles – _Err, Obito-san, _I mentally corrected – and how he had said that Grey Hair shouldn't have said any of that. _I guess that means that was the truth. But what if _that_'s a trick._

"Ugh," I growled, rubbing my sopping hair back from my forehead. I was surprised at the heat rising from my skin and doubted that all the water I rubbed away was rain. My eyes widened as I remembered something else. _And they all are calling me something too. What was it? _I frowned. _A jinchurichi? Jinchuriki? Yes, that was it. Jinchūriki. What the heck is that? Why would that make Death and those shinobi – of the Mist was it? – why would it make them want me? Is that why the Leaf wants me too? But if the Mist wants me dead, why does the Leaf want me alive?_

I let out a small groan and scratched my forehead. A light headache had been steadily pounding away, but thinking seemed to only give the drummer a bigger mallet. _I should just trust Akio-senpai. He knows what we're dealing with. _A flash of memory made a small frown creased my lips. _He was a shinobi once after all._

I hissed as my bad foot caught onto a bramble, and I stumbled forward but I felt Akio-senpai's nails dig into my shoulder. Keeping the yelp locked into my throat, I grimaced, letting a shaky breath out between my teeth.

"Are you okay?" he murmured.

I nodded, glaring down at the joint. True to the Marked One's words, she hadn't fully healed me. On top of that, disuse had made the muscles weak – only the brace still wrapping it tightly kept me truly supported. Perhaps it would strengthen over time, but right now I wished I still had my cane. _My cane. _A pang of loss paralleled my ankle within my chest. I swiped my brow, my hand coming away with hot, salty dew, as I glanced out into the woods, wondering where that treasured item now lay. I could only imagine Utau-kun's snout poking up through the muck. _I need to find it. I wonder when I can get ou-_

"You okay?"

I jerked my head around at the girl's voice. It was the Marked One, Rin-san. I hadn't even noticed her come to my side, working her way deftly through the tangle of plants. That had never happened before. She was carefully scrutinizing my face, her eyes marking the sweat from the rain.

I worked my cheeks into a weak smile. "No. I'm fine. Arigato."

She frowned herself. "Again, I'm sorry that I couldn't-"

I shook her off. She gave a weak smile and seemed to sink into the shadows before somehow reappearing in her spot behind a glowering Akio-senpai. I felt a little guilty that I had refused her help; not that I needed it or felt bad for her, but a hunger had shifted in me. A hunger to watch her unwind and thread the strings of reality. To watch her and learn. To take her knowledge and make it my own. _If she could do it, then I should be able to as well. Then if anything ever happened again, I could fix it. _My thoughts flashed to Teru-kun, and I felt my throat tighten. _If I could only heal him._

I thought about what Rin-san had done for the rest of the hike back, trying to tease out the subtleties of her ability. As we broke through the last of the underbrush, I felt a serrated leaf slice through my forearm. Taking my eyes from the invitingly warm and dry shrine in front of us, I glanced down at the bubbling blood that swiftly hardened over the wound. _Practice, _the thought floated across my mind.

I looked up just in time to see Azuumi-senpai let out a soft gasp, her eyes growing as wide as the moon. "Come on and get out of the rain," she ushered, her gaze focused on the newcomers. I could see the practiced, warm smile light her features – the one that had haunted my younger self's nightmares – as she held the door open for Yuuta-sama and then the outsiders.

After the shinobi had filed in, she gave Yori-senpai, Akio-senpai, and me a strained look but all any of us could do was stare tiredly back. She pursed her lips and nabbed Yori-senpai by the arm as we all walked into the shelter. "Should I be worried?" she hissed into his ear.

Yori-senpai blanched and stuttered out a few syllables before Akio-senpai cut in, "The war has come here now. Don't say or do anything unnecessary." Slipping on his uwabaki, he straightened up and gave us all a long look. "Well, let's go entertain our guests." He clipped the last word as he turned to the kitchen, back stiff and arms straight.

Yori-senpai just shook his head and whispered, "I-I thought raising the kid of a kami was supposed t-to be the hardest part."

Azuumi-senpai gave him a sympathetic smile and murmured, "I thought so too. Let's just make sure Yuuta-sama can't have any more dreams, shall we?"

Yori-senpai cracked a smile at that, looking more like his old self. Seeing that he would be okay, Azuumi-senpai turned a sharper eye on me. Scanning me up and down, she let out a little gasp. "Your ankle? You can walk on it?"

I nodded, looking down at the limb proudly as I tried to slip my pant leg over it and the brace. I narrowed my eyes at the latter, knowing that I still needed it but still wondering. A part of me wanted to rip the leather cuff off, but a quick glance at the precise, neat stitching along its edges checked my savage urge. I glanced up at the seamstress and felt the same strange tumult of emotions wash over me.

"How-" Azuumi-senpai stopped and shook her white head. "No, we'll talk later. First we must take care of our guests." She grabbed my arm and bustled us towards the kitchen. Yuuta-sama and the shinobi were already sitting snuggly under the kotatsu table and conversing. Akio-senpai was leaning against a wall, arms crossed and gaze sharp.

"Get the tea going," Azuumi-senpai ordered under her breath as she made her way to the stove. She started to throw some food together for the table as I gimped my way around to fill the pot with water. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yori-senpai slink into the room as well and range awkwardly in the background.

"And how is the war?" Yuuta-sama was asking. "Where is it now? Which side is winning?"

"It doesn't look like any side has an edge," Minato-san answered, rubbing the nape of his neck. "The heaviest fighting is in the east, though there's a lot behind the lines as well. I'm sure you can tell that from the presence of the Mist here."

As I struggled to bring the kettle to the fire, Azuumi-senpai's more capable hands lifted the load from me. "Go chop the vegetables," she murmured. I nodded and hobbled to the cutting board. With my back to the outsiders, I couldn't see if they were nervous that I held a knife but I didn't feel the unease in the air shift.

As I decapitated the carrots, Minato-san innocently asked, "So this shrine. How long has it been here?"

Yuuta-sama gave a thoughtful 'hmm' before answering, "Well, long before any of us came. It was a bit of a fixer-upper when Akio-kun and I came upon it – hmm, how many years has it been now?"

"Forty-six," came Akio-senpai's deep, raspy voice. The air thickened.

"That long?" Minato-san asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice. "What were you waiting for?" he laughed. "What's so special about this place?"

I wouldn't have recognized it as a trap if Akio-senpai hadn't warned me: the ease in which he said it, the naturalness of the question. I frowned. _He could've done better than that. _Perhaps he had been banking on Yuuta-sama's apparent openness, on that confidence he had confused for naiveté.

"Waiting?" Yuuta-sama jokingly scoffed. "Young man, I can tell you're no priest. We simply pray and live out our lies in solitude up here, away from the madness of men. Some people are drawn to seek this place out as you can see from those before you. Maybe, in a way, even your team was called by the kamigami?"

There was a pregnant pause before the Yellow Man gave a light laugh. "Perhaps, though I doubt the kamigami need the protection of shinobi. Besides, I doubt we cou-"

"Here," Azuumi-senpai muttered, snagging my attention. I put down the knife as she handed me a tray of cups steaming with the tea. "Pass it out as I finish the cooking. You can start setting up the plates to hand to our guests after."

I gave a daft nod as I carefully walked to the table, trying to keep the teetering cups from rattling too loudly. I stopped beside Minato-san first, carefully lowering a cup onto the table before him. He smiled and thanked me, his eyes carefully scrutinizing me. I forced myself to lightly bow and not to stare back – not to cause any commotion by challenging him – and I saw his look move towards Yuuta-sama. Some message was exchanged, and the priest only nodded, a bit tired.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I shuffled to where the girl sat between the two boys. Her eyes were on Obito-san as he whispered some story to her while Kakashi-san just sat there, chin in one hand as he stretched the other. I stopped behind them just as Kakashi-san muttered something, causing the girl to stifle a laugh and the other boy to flush.

Feeling awkward, I murmured, "Would you like some tea?" Rin-san took her eyes from her comrades and beamed up at me.

"Domo," she thanked, taking her cup from me but handing it to Kakashi-san. She did the same with the next cup but handed it to Obito-san. She took the last cup for herself.

I grinned at her, bowing in gratitude for her help. I could feel the other boys' gazes weighing upon me, and I clenched my jaw. Strategically avoiding their gazes, I quickly slunk over to Yuuta-sama. He took his tea with a smack of his lips, giving me a bright smile in the process. I dipped my chin and handed out a cup to Yori-senpai and Akio-senpai as well. The former took it with shaking hands, the latter merely fixed me with a look. I gave a tiny nod at his subtle inquiry, letting him know I was all right. He turned his gaze back onto the outsiders.

I couldn't hear the next part of conversation as I was distracted with helping Azuumi-senpai with the food. She had decided to make a hot ramen and spooned it out into bowls which I then passed out. The conversation lulled then as the outsiders gratefully took their meals after Yuuta-sama took a first spoonful. My senpais sipped at their own bowls while I followed suit; Azuumi-senpai disappeared, muttering under her breath about space. I doubted any of us were really hungry, but it just seemed like the right thing to do – sharing a meal to cement an alliance.

Yuuta-sama kept up a light string of conversation, talking about his studying to be a priest and some of his travels. Minato-san kept their side of the conversation going, asking subtle questions here and there but never really speaking of himself or his team, let alone where they all came from or why they were here. When Yuuta-sama began speaking of maintenance for the kami's shrine, Yellow Man butted in with an apologetic, "I'm sorry. I suppose I should know this but which kami is this shrine dedicated to?"

Yuuta-sama grinned but I could tell he was stumbling a bit for an answer. With our revelation months ago about the true nature of our shrine's kami, about how Ka-san was only its messenger, how any information about the true kami seemed to be destroyed – well, it made since that our guji paused. However, knowing how bad it would look, Yuuta-sama lifted his hands, motioning beyond the thin walls. "To all the kamigami," he answered, "especially those who reside in these mountains."

Minato-san nodded. "Well, I feel that an offering is traditional. Where should we-"

Yuuta-sama waved him off. "Your presence is all that is needed, and the walk through the rain should have cleansed you of any evil. Now, would you like to see your rooms?"

The room seemed to perk up then. While Grey Hair just looked as apathetic as before, Goggles was nearly tearing from the barrage of yawns that had been wracking him. Even Rin-san was swaying where she sat, struggling to stay awake. I tightened my lips, trying to keep a smile from forming. Looking at them now, they seemed to be just a harmless group of kids. _The first people my age I've ever really met, _I considered, watching them move smoothly onto their feet. The only thing that betrayed their origins was the dull sheen of their engraved headbands and hilts of weapons as they caught the fire's light.

"I feel there are some more serious matters that need discussing," Minato-san interjected, remaining seated, "but you all should get some rest." He gazed at his team, eyes softening yet still strict. "Good work today," he praised. "We will debrief in the morning. For now, I'll take the first watch. Kakashi-kun, I'll wake you when it's your shift."

"Hai, sensei," they all said sharply in unison.

"This way," Azuumi-senpai called them over to the doorway. She looked over to me. "Mira-chan, can you get the extra blankets and towels from the closet? I've already laid out the tatami mats."

I nodded and followed the little group out the door before turning away to our closet as Azuumi-senpai toured them to the bathroom and bedrooms. Grabbing the meager extra supplies, I rejoined the group in front of my own bedroom door. "Here," Azuumi-senpai motioned for Rin-san. "If you don't mind, it might be a bit crowded."

I padded up to Azuumi-senpai's side, handing her a blanket and a towel. She passed them along to Rin-chan who smiled and gave a deep bow. "Arigato," she spoke, trying to keep a yawn down. "I'll just wash up and head to bed then."

Azuumi-senpai nodded, closing the door after the girl. The boys and I followed her towards Yori-senpai's room. I stifled a laugh as I saw that his bed had been replaced by three new mats, knowing that Azuumi-senpai must've given Akio-senpai a new roommate. _I wonder how that'll turn out_, I considered, handing off the last of the towels and blankets. Both thanked us with a bow – Kakashi-san dipping his chin after Obito-san's glower – and then closed the door.

Free from the outsiders' gazes, I let my shoulders fall. "Tired too, eh?" Azuumi-senpai murmured, patting me on the back.

I looked up at her and blinked.

"Well, I can handle cleaning up. You go on and get yourself to bed as well." She poked my shoulder in a shooing manner. "I feel like you'll need your rest for tomorrow, and I'll just wheedle the story out from Yori-senpai later tonight."

I nodded and trudged off to my bedroom, limping slightly as my ankle's strength wavered. Just as I was about to slide back the door, I paused, feeling my muscles tense knowing a shinobi was in there. I looked at the door, debating whether to go in when I decided that I wanted a little more time away from the outsiders.

I backed off and hobbled towards the kitchen door, engrained habit seeking the quickest way to fresh air. I forgot for a moment that they were all still in there, but I stopped once I heard their voices. The sentences were muffled with the door closed, but I could still tease out the words, feel the tension wafting over me. I took a step closer, to tune the sounds to something more comprehensible.

It was Minato-san speaking. "Would you rather the Mist get her? You of all people should know what they would do to her." The bite in the words was clearly reigned back, but there was venom still left in its sting.

I could almost see Akio-senpai cross his arms, his jaw squaring, as he growled, "Yes. I do. And I've only heard rumors about the Leaf and their experiments."

_Experiments? _I fidgeted, wondering if even the worst I had read in my novels had some truth to them. I especially didn't like that 'experiments' and me were situated so close together in their conversation. And I knew they were talking about me. That's what all their conversations had to do with since that night.

I bit my cheek. _I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Not any of those people. Not any of the pack. Just Death. _

"I know we haven't fully earned your trust yet." Minato-san's voice came out calm, reasonable. "But understand that to hurt her would be the last thing I, my team, or the Leaf would want."

"Weren't you hired to kill her?" Akio-senpai's voice hissed. I shuddered as Azuumi-senpai gasped and Yori-senpai started to stutter a protest.

"But he didn't." Yuuta-sama silenced the rising storm like a gentle wind whose very existence was to calm the storm. His words seemed even to stab the tension in the air, letting out some of the poison.

I pursed my lips. While Akio-senpai had made his position on the outsiders clear, I was still confused by Yuuta-sama. He had told me of his dreams of the shinobi once – not much, just that he had them. Now, I found myself wondering what exactly he had seen, what visions the kamigami had given him. But there was only one thing I could deduce. It was obvious from his actions – from the way he had braved the night's storm, faced the dangers of the forest, and even listened congenially to Yori-senpai's protests. I could tell from that familiar twinkling in his eye when he looked at them that night – a look I had seen on the very first night I had met him.

_He trusts them, _I realized, letting my body go limp. _Why? _I felt something spark in my belly, a burning curiosity – a demand to know. _What did he see in his dreams? _

Minato-san spoke again, his voice not truly apologetic but at least understanding. "We were hired to eliminate the threat, yes," he admitted. "Assassination was only for the last option if the Mist's jinchūriki went on another rampage. Apparently you taught your student well. She managed to control herself tonight."

_Student. _I let myself finally process that, my teeth began to grinding. _Death was Akio-senpai's student. _I grimaced at that connection, wanting nothing but her bloody end by my hands as relationship to me. I felt that demand within me grow – that self-righteous hunger for the truth.

"But now that we know the truth of the matter, that it's just a little girl-" Minato-san continued. "Well, elimination doesn't always mean kill."

I heard Akio-senpai laugh coldly, his voice catching on the unused notes. "'Little girl', eh? I wouldn't underestimate her."

"Still," Minato-san maintained, "she'd be safer in the Village, learning how to actually control whichever tailed beast she has, become a proper jinchūriki."

"And your weapon," Akio-senpai finished. I heard something being set down on the wooden table, letting a soft thunk echo in the air. "Not even the Three Tails or Six Tails frightened me, but _her_?" His voice caught on something, growing even raspier, harsher, colder. "You don't know what you're dealing with."

I felt myself grow cold. Not like if icy mountain water had been thrown over me. Not like if winter was scavenging at my skin. It was like worms were wriggling into my skin, burying themselves deeper and deeper until they had burrowed someplace I had forgotten was there. I bit into my lip, happy to draw blood instead of tears.

The telltale hiss of a door sliding open forced me to move. On silent feet, I slunk into the shadows, my ankle fumbling beneath me. Rin-san came into the light, towel draped over herself as she headed to the bath. She didn't notice me as she went in and closed the door.

I let out a shaking breath and slipped into my now empty bedroom, shutting the door behind me. My younger self would've been proud to hear something like that – proud to hear the fear I inspired in others. And now?

_Ka-san was right_, I thought, sinking onto my bed and shutting my eyes. _I really am changing. _


	24. Chapter 24

I woke in a cold sweat. My hands were trembling as fear slithered down my spine. My jaw was aching from its tight clench, my teeth grinding against one another. Yet I couldn't remember anything from the nightmare. Only this feeling of absolute dread remained, this feeling that something had been chasing me, hunting me.

Exhaustion settled heavy in my bones – an exhaustion that dragged me to sleep even before Rin-san had returned. I kept my eyes flared open, refusing to give into it again, refusing to be yanked back to those vicious visions. Putting my hands to my chest, I tried to ease my pounding heart, trying to reassure it that everything was okay. _But it isn't, _I thought. _Not really._

Remembering all that had happened, remembering Akio-senpai's words, I took a deep breath and straightened up. I shook my head, my limp hair sticking to my wet cheeks. I shifted in my seat, squishing the sheets damp with sweat. I glanced to the corner of the room, seeing Rin-san comfortably asleep. She was lying on her stomach, the faint moonlight tracing her foot twitch beneath the blankets.

I took in another deep breath, but that only seemed to make everything worse. My lungs filled with stagnant, stifling air that scratched my throat as it went down. My sweating only seemed to increase as my breath shallowed. The room closed in on me. The feeling of something near – something just about to drag me to my death overwhelmed me. I panicked. My sheets stuck to me, clinging on as if to keep me chained to the floor. I tried to kick them off of me, panic making the struggle pitiful. I needed to get outside. I _needed _fresh air.

I bolted to my feet, savagely kicking the sheets away. They slammed into the cupboard with a soft thunk. Guiltily, I looked to Rin-san, expecting the noise to have woken her. She only shifted onto her side, curling into a tight ball, a little smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

_At least she's sleeping well, _I murmured, turning towards the door. My breath grew ragged, hoarse. _I just need to go outside and sit in my branch and breathe and think. I'm awake now. There's nothing that can hurt me. _

I ignored the twinge of doubt as I slipped out of my room and into the dark hallway. Glancing around, my nails still digging into my chest, I saw that Yori-senpai had extinguished all the lights. _Must be asleep, _I thought, sniffing the air and catching the foreigners' scents. I pursed my lips. _I hope so at least._

I headed towards the kitchen, my steps mute as I whisked into the room. I looked to the fire, watching the embers gasp their last breaths. _It's past the wolf's hour, _I realized, rubbing more sweat off my brow. The rest of the room had been cleaned up since the dinner, Azuumi-senpai successful without my help. I vaguely considered scrounging around for the chocolate, knowing that would soothe my nerves, but reigned the greed back: I didn't want to spend twenty minutes inside looking for the new stash. Last time, they had locked it in a container and stuffed it beneath musty rags to keep me from sniffing it out.

_And I don't want to make that much noise, _I considered, remembering the impromptu alarm system of bells taped onto the box's sides.

I stepped across the room slid open the door to the garden. The gentle night's breeze washed over me like a tidal wave, cooling my searing skin. I gulped it down, trying to shake off the foggy vestiges of my nightmare. Barefoot, I stepped into the grass, kicking up the fresh scent of earth and forest that only a storm could bring. Closing my eyes, I took in nature as if it were my drug.

"Yo," a voice called out coolly.

I froze. A little frown tugged at my lips as I a silent snarl scrunched my nose. I cursed at myself for not remembering what Yellow Man had ordered last. Even worse, I hadn't even noticed him. How could I not have noticed him? I gave myself a mental punch for letting my senses get dull.

Silver hair as fine as spider's webs poked out from one side of the trunk. That was all I could see of him besides a foot lightly swinging in lazy circles just above the pond. Kakashi-san was settled into _my_ niche, not even bothering to glance back and meet my gaze.

_Usurper, _I growled, that wolfish territoriality kicking in. Wiping the glower from my face, I walked over to the willow and stopped at the edge of the shore. I didn't bother to look up at him – showing him the same courtesy – and instead busied myself with tapping the surface of the water with a toe. Even as the first ripples reached the other shore minutes later, neither of us had said anything more. I fidgeted, some engrained fear that Azuumi-senpai would appear out of nowhere and whack me for my rudeness pressured me to say something. I couldn't think of anything except-

"You're in my spot." I had wiped the message clean of any anger. The words were entirely emotionless, ringing in the air off their own hollowness.

"Oh?" came his response, equally passionless. Still, I knew it for what it was just like how he understood my words for what they were.

I looked at him over my shoulder, gauging him directly now. Nestled in my crevasse, he was stretched out and looking up at the few pockets of starry sky that had managed to break through the clouds. If you ignored the full tactile gear – kunai and shuriken only the most visible – he almost looked at peace as he rested there with his hands behind his head, his chest steadily rising and falling in slow breaths. Yet despite that lazy image, despite that leg dangling off the branch, I couldn't help but feel my heart quicken its beat, my hands curl into fists.

_Kizuato-san was right, _I condemned. _Bloodlust has gotten to him. He only lives for the kill. _I shifted my weight, regarding this sick creature, and turned away. I knew what the pack would've said with him, what Kizuato-san would've done instantly. What these humans should've realized a long time ago. _He needs to be put out of his misery. _

It was a while before anything was said again. I knew that if Yori-senpai could see us now, he'd only be guffawing and poking and pinching me, pronouncing that I had finally met someone who could rival my silence.

The boy must've been considering something along those lines as well as he muttered, "So I suppose they told you not to say anything." I glanced back to see him scratch at the brim of the nose beneath the mask. "Typical," he continued, the barest unit that comprised spite tainting his voice. "And we're supposed to be allies."

I said nothing, turning my attention back to the pond's subtle waves. _Trying to wheedle information out of me, _I accused, discarding his tone. Frowning, I tickled a pebble with a toe, something whispered inside of me, prodding me to action. It was that hunger for truth, for knowledge – something, _anything, _that could help explain what was happening.

Biting it back, I searched for the most insipid, inane statement I could imagine. I was almost proud when the words dribbled out, "So, you're on guard duty?"

He closed his eyes, breathing in lightly. It would've looked completely natural if I hadn't seen that look so many times before as I stumbled my way through the human form. That flash of impatience. That hint of frustration. With my senpais and sensei, these looks were always watered down with kindness, with acceptance. With him, the brusqueness only meant one thing: utter annoyance.

He opened his dark eyes to the stars once more as he sighed, "That obvious?" He gestured out into the forest with a wave of his hand. "I should be out there, but your little pack of wolves won't stop trailing me and snarling at me. It kind of makes stealth a bit difficult."

I let my smirk glow on my face as I mentally cheered for my pack. At the corner of my consciousness, I could feel them out there. A dim smile flickered across my features. If I was right, it was Shizuka-san who was pacing through the woods about a hundred yards away. _She definitely would be the one to make it so difficult, _I lauded.

"Do you even know what's at stake here? Why the Mist is after you?" His voice was strange – the sounds themselves just echoes off the hollow words.

Still, I couldn't help it. I turned again to Kakashi-san, that hunger rearing within me. The _need _to _know._ It gnawed at my muscles, tried to work my jaw to release the thousands of questions battering my mind. _What's a jinchūriki? Why would anyone want it? Why does the Mist want it? And why're the Leaf protecting me now? What would they want with me afterwards? Did it have to do with the kamigami? Was this all part of Ka-san's plan? And who was Ka-san a messenger for? What did It want? Why was It so angry the last time? _And worst of all. _Why is Akio-senpai scared of me? _

I shoved a hand against my chin, feigning an itch, as I latched my teeth shut. Heat swelled along my cheeks, a pressure build behind my eyes at that last thought. I crinkled my nose, stuffing the hurt down. It hurt. Of course it did. But I was no pup, ready to lash out just because of some minor betrayal. Deep in my core I knew that my senpai still cared for me, and I trusted him completely. He was pack. And pack doesn't betray pack. He told me to keep quiet, and that's what I'd do.

The silence drew out again between us, but the pressure of Kakashi-san's question faded as he recognized I wasn't going to answer. His attention seemed to drift elsewhere as mine remained razor-sharp upon him and the questions that now surrounded my existence, gnawing at me like starved boars.

Eventually, he broke the quiet again. I readied myself for another trick, some other question to betray my knowledge – or lack thereof – of the situation. I didn't know how, but I knew from my stories that any information could be used by the shinobi to their advantage. Yet even upon my deathbed, I don't ever think I'll forget that jolt of surprise at his next words.

"So, miko, what's death supposed to be like?"


	25. Chapter 25

"Death?" The word slid out of my mouth like spittle. My face scrunched, disbelief battling suspicion in my features. _Had I heard that right? _

I glanced back at Kakashi-san, eyes narrowed, pupils primed for any twitch or jolt that could tell me why of all things he had asked me _that_. My surprise deepened to true incredulity to see that he had _moved_. Barely. Still, there was no denying that he had lifted his head to peer at me over one of the leather straps that crossed his chest. Despite that being his only action, I knew he had let some of his interest seep through his callous exterior, especially as his brows creased at my lack of response. If the mask hadn't been there – or if it hadn't covered most of his face – it would've been easier to interpret his emotion. But all I had to go on were those creased brows and those steel eyes.

Naturally, I assumed the worst and scoured my mind for any possible way this was a trick – some way to gouge information out of me. I came up with nothing. _Still, _I considered, hedging the bet that the confidence oozing off of him was also laced with cunning.

I braced myself for quick action, imperceptibly widening my stance as I met his gaze. Lowering my chin to protect my throat, I tossed out, "Why do you want to know about the afterlife?"

His eyes went dead, and for a moment I braced myself for a fight. But again, I was wrong. His icy gaze was warmed to a dull arrogance as he rolled his eyes. His condemnation was made even clearer with a "baka" murmured under his breath – a word just audible enough for me to catch it.

"I suppose just to know what to expect," he answered, the edge sharpening in his voice. His tone slid against my skin, and I was almost surprised that it didn't draw blood. But what really put me on edge – what made my hair bristle and my muscles tense – was the way his eyes flashed. For one infinitesimal moment, emotion flared upon those marble features – an act so quick I couldn't even judge what I had seen.

But where mind failed, instinct kicked in. My mouth went dry, and my lips unfurled a snarl. I caught myself just before the growl bubbled in my chest and bit into my cheeks, forcing my lips straight again. I took a deep breath and kept my gaze locked with his, not backing down from his challenge. It was strange dealing with a human even more feral than me.

_What's his angle? _I barked in my mind, wracking all thoughts but still drawing a blank on how answers to his questions would benefit him. I suppose what also made me hesitate was my assumption that this information was common knowledge, easily found in scrolls and books. I assumed that people were taught by their mother or even sensei just like I had been.

_Maybe the shinobi weren't? _I considered, not even blinking as we considered each other. There was nothing now – not even a spark of life – in Kakashi-san's gaze. Something seemed to click into place with that thought. I had read nothing in my stories about a shinobi's concept of death. The books only really focused on righteous vengeance of a foe's death or the crippling loss of a comrade as parts of the plot.

_Is he really just curious? _I mulled over. _I know I asked Ka-san and Yuuta-sama about death. It would make sense for anyone, let alone shinobi. I mean their entire lives revolve around it. Books even call them 'shinigami' sometimes. _I let those thoughts settle, cementing themselves into a decision. Taking the chance, I relinquished my cheeks, letting my teeth snap at each other as I clacked out, "It's balance."

We blinked at the same time, the war of the gazes coming to a truce. That action was like a needle that poked the tension in the air. It deflated, slowly, steadily but it never fully faded; wariness still hung between us like a spider's intricate web – invisible but palpable.

His right brow broke stern rank with its brother and lifted, egging me on with an impatient and nonverbal, "And?"

Keeping an eye on him, I fidgeted in my stance, shaking out muscles that were whining with frustration at being primed to act with only nothing to occur. "There's not much written about it. You're supposed to fully live, and focusing on death prevents that. Plus, those who die and experience it firsthand don't really tend to come back and write it down."

Grey Hair took didn't smile and take that last little jab for a joke; he took it how I head meant it – a defensive shove. He cocked his head and prodded a bit aggressively, "So what _has_ been written?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "The most detail comes from the story of Izanami-sama and Izanagi-sama." I paused, there, scanning for any recognition to cross his face. _It should, _I considered. _These are the kamigami summoned into existence by the Amatsukami. They were the ones who gave birth to the land we walk on._ Seeing only that stony blankness, I considered again that perhaps shinobi simply weren't taught this. _Perhaps then I'll skirt the details, _I muttered, thinking the story of Izanami-sama's death and Izanagi-sama's subsequent failed attempt to resurrect her would be too complicated for now.

"Well, either way the texts refer to the underworld as Yomi," I continued. "It's supposed to be a gloomy place, but it's not a punishment. It isn't a reward either though. One of your mitama goes there to exist for perpetuity." I could see the flash of a frown cross his face at 'mitama', but he brokered no questions. I couldn't help as a little pride filled me at that; for once, I knew something someone else didn't. I crossed my arms in front of my chest, continuing in my best impression of a sensei.

"There isn't really any 'paradise' to expect after you die. There's only the Takamagahara which is the land of the Amatsukami, the kamigami of the heavens." For a moment, I toyed with the idea of not explaining the latter word as I saw his brows crease again but decided to be a merciful sensei. "The Kotoamatsukami are the first five kamigami who created the universe. Arguably the foremost is Ameno-" I stopped seeing his expression sharpen with impatience.

I frowned, miffed by his disrespect. _So they really have forgotten their kamigami, _I muttered mentally, realizing some of its extent for the first time. "Anyway, when you die, your spirit will find its way to the Yomi. When it's ready, it will cut its ties to the living realm, and the mitama – the four souls that make up _you_ – will separate. A piece will exist in the Yomi as the others join something even greater."

I tapped my fingers against my thigh, trying but failing at any further description. I gave him a small shrug, signaling the end of my speech.

Grey Hair didn't seem too impressed. He lifted himself upright, his nails digging into the bark. His brows knit together in an unmistakable scowl as he snapped, "Well what about those who don't even deserve that? What happens to them?"

I frowned. "Those who don't deserve it?" I questioned, the words feeling bitter in my mouth. "Like-"

The word 'killer' floated through my mind, but I didn't feel like voicing that aloud to a shinobi. Understanding kicked in as the thought flickered, _Is he worried about himself? _For some reason, I didn't truly believe that worry was what prompted his question. His arrogance probably never even entertained that thought. _But then why is he asking? _

Cutting my falter short, I altered my sentence and spoke, "Like a suicide?"

He said nothing. He did nothing. But hair rose along my skin as something within me cowered under his stare. I gritted my teeth, punching that emotion down and hoping he hadn't seen it. _He must've realized I changed my words. Baka, _I snapped at myself as I circled faster and faster around the whirlpool. Knowing I needed to act or drown, I kicked out into an explanation.

"If it's serious enough," I spoke, clear and steady, "they become yukei. They're human spirits who are stuck in the edges between Yomi and life. They're tied to the living through tragedy, love, vengeance, or something even stronger than that. Once they've accomplished their goal, they can move on. If not, they're just stuck, wretched and agonized. Some can even turn violent. Only the most astounding can even return to our plane."

His eyebrow raised but his voice was inky and ravaging. "Is that true?"

Desperately, I clutched at whatever lifeline I had created. I forced myself to do a lighthearted shrug that probably looked like a spasm of pain. Instinct tried to place a watery smile on my lips as I said, "That's what Ka-san said." I froze, blood rushing from my face as the words drifted into the air before I could snatch them back. Panic sputtered in my mind as I thought I had ruined it all, thought I had betrayed my deepest secret. Akio-senpai's warning to say nothing of myself roared in my ears.

But then an equally petrified voice piped out that my expression, my _visible _panicking had destroyed it all now. What could have just been any, old mother had now become 'something of importance' mother. I was drowning again. While Kakashi-san had initially been distracted over my response, his falcon eyes had picked up on the sweat prickling now on my brow. Something switched within him and the predator sprung to its feet.

"Your okaa-san told you?" he murmured, his tone soft, delicate. "Where'd she learn this?"

Trying to clamp down on the mass of wriggling worms in my chest, I pathetically eked out, "I don't know." The waver in my pitch couldn't have been any more obvious. The current dragged me back into the vortex.

The only sound that signaled the shinobi's descent was the soft crinkling of grass as his soles met earth. He rolled his shoulders, stretching out the muscles who sighed with a light pop. When his hand dropped to his side – the hilt of a kunai brushing his fingertips – I took a step back. The pond's water licked at my ankles, happy for the company, as my muscles tensed, my hackles raised.

His eyes rolled, dismissing any threat I posed. He leaned against the tree's trunk. "What was her name?"

"F-Fuu," I whispered, drawing from my novels once more. I was barely hanging on now.

His black eyes hardened into onyx, his words sharp as obsidian. "Where is she now?"

I floundered for a response and choked out the first words I pounced upon, "Suicide." As soon as it left my mouth, my chest tightened. I had shoved that black, wriggling lie out of my mouth in self-defense, yet its putrid taste still lapped at my tongue. I swallowed that bile, feeling sick to my stomach before I realized that my mooring was gone.

His face was turned from me, his eyes and expression hidden by unshackled ashen hair. And he was shaking. It was a small thing, like how the earth gives that slight tremor that most ignore. This shaking was my warning – my indication that I had woken the volcano. The shaking soon slowed, absorbed by the muscles which grew hard, a gouge deepening each outline. Something glinted in the moonlight, and I leapt back into the pond as I saw the kunai shift in his grip. Not even seeing his movement, I landed in a crouch and was already readying myself to bolt into any direction. I kept my eyes trained to the weapon and waited. For the first time since the Ancient Wood, I felt time truly stop.

The voice couldn't have possibly come from him. It was too deep, too thick with a hate someone his age couldn't possibly have had. Its edge raked my eardrums, the power of a thunderclap concentrated into those soft, few words. "If you lie like that again, I'll kill you."

He lifted his head, hair still low, swaying like ash over the glinting black flames that were his eyes. His voice grew hoarse, his wrath too intense for even himself. "With that tailed beast inside of you, I'm sure you've figured it out by now. Being a jinchūriki is a curse. Not for you; for everyone around you." The kunai shook in his grip; he was nearly losing control. "One day," he hissed, "you'll see that you've only caused pain. On that day, you'll be too weak to do it yourself, and you'll wish that I killed you here."

With a silver flash, he was gone. I blinked, swiveling my gaze to make sure he had truly left. Something hit my leg, and I jumped into the air, whirling to face him. I stumbled face first into the water as my ankle crinkled beneath me, screeching out in pain. I tore from the pond's grip, my eyes flashing. But no one was there.

Drawing ragged breaths, my gaze fell. And then I saw it there, waving in the water, inviting me like a decomposed claw. That board from the haiden.

I stared at it as I lowered my face into the water, and then screamed until my lungs collapsed.


	26. Chapter 26

I hissed and bristled, the electric sting along my eyes threatening to break my concentration. My brow furrowed beneath damp hair as I focused before me. My hands were steady as they hovered over my leg, the light glowing ever dimmer as the sun crept over the mountain range. But in the growing dawn, I could see the small cut slowly knit itself – the threads beneath them embracing each other like a long lost sibling. A triumphant grin raked back my lips as I healed the last of the scrapes, burning with pride that I had accomplished the shinobi's seemingly miraculous feat.

_Not so hard, _I crooned through the headache chiseling away at my skull. I dropped my hands to my side. _I just hadn't thought to do it before. Just like matching the pieces in a puzzle. I'd have been able to heal Teru-kun easily. Well, maybe I still can. _

With a soft 'oof', I fell onto my back, the damp grass throwing up droplets like confetti. As I pondered that thought, a cool wind stampeded past me, victoriously celebrating the fresh scents of a drowned nature. Those greens that had survived the fitful bombardments of rain savagely roared back their triumph, their limbs looking greener, their smell overpowering. Within this onslaught, I brooded in the mud, not bothering to take my usual willow's throne; his scent still marred the worn bark.

I closed my reddening eyes, allowing them some relief from the strain. Though exhaustion yanked at my aching mind – like some ever-strengthening vortex – I resisted the urge to fall asleep. Instead, I focused on the chill eking through my bones, spreading like mold from my damp clothes. When that didn't last, I turned my attention to the subdued mewling of my ankle, surprising myself when I nearly prayed for the full pain to return. As that failed too, I tried to cast my mind out – searching for familiar threads – but I was alone: both the pack and Grey Hair had travelled beyond my reach.

_Anything, _I groaned, finding my thoughts always circling back to Kakashi-san's words. To what had happened. To what I had done. To what I could possibly do to stop it all.

_I'd rather be the jinchūriki they think I am than a miko. _I snorted, my breath appearing as mist in the cool morning air. _Maybe I'd know what to do then. _I crunched my already scrunched eyes as my frown deepened, memories returning to be properly analyzed. _I don't even know who my kami is._

I curled my fingers into the prayer beads lying limply upon my chest. The thrumming of the world quieted, and for a moment I pretended it had always been that way, would always stay that way. But the fantasy slipped from me like perfect dreams always do, thrusting me back to the horror that was my life.

I let my hand fall to the mud at my side, the beads slipping out of my grip like so much had recently. I let out a sigh, my thoughts drifting from the beads, to the threads, to the Ancient Wood, to Ka-san and then to the Kami.

I hissed, sucking air through my teeth as a migraine immediately erupted and began hacking away at my brain. It was like when I was younger, and I first tried to behold Ka-san – the memories so bright they were searing my mind. There was only so much I could hack out before I had to admit defeat or risk insanity. I knew with time I'd be able to pull more out, excavate the finer details: that's how it always was with the kamigami. For now, only flickers of it – distorted and broken – came to me.

_It said something found me. _Beneath closed lids, I rolled my eyes. _Not too hard to put two and two together on that one. I mean, who could it possibly be talking about? _

I pictured the two camps of shinobi, fighting a growl as I thought of the Mist and allowing a frown as I considered the Leaf. The figures of Death and Grey Hair were etched in sharper, darker lines; however, there was no true competition. I only held wary mistrust towards Kakashi-san: while his bloodthirstiness concerned me, a childhood amongst wolves had accustomed me to such outbursts. On the other hand, my feelings for Habu were simple: I was going to disembowel her.

_She's the one, _I snarled, recalling that something dark pulsated within her core. The thing that had somehow protected her from me; the thing that made something deep within me quiver in both rage and fear. _There's no doubt about it. _My brow furrowed as a frustrated rumble boiled in my throat, powered by the knowledge that I still stood no chance.

My conscience nipped at me as other visions came floating lazily to the surface. Fire. A weathered hand gripping a ripped scroll. The shrine enveloped in flames. My chest constricted, my eyes flashing open. I stared up at the last of the constellations above, anxiety tapping my heart to play out of tune. _Why'd she do it? _the question came, shoving head and shoulders above the rest that bubbled from that memory. I gripped those prayer beads, asserting that they were still there, still mine. _Why would the miko destroy her kami's shrine?_

Before I could consider it further, I snapped upright as someone approached. Staggering only halfway to my feet, I lurched and scrambled in the soft mud, darting behind the toolshed as I heard the reluctant hiss of the shrine's door sliding open. My heart was racing as I knelt low into the grass, feeling like a mischievous, sugar-starved pup again just as Obito-san stepped out.

The shinobi stretched his arms above his head, releasing a pent-up yawn as he lifted onto the balls of his feet. He lowered back to the ground, snuffling and rubbing at his eyes, looking this way and that.

_Change of guard? _I posed, intuitively knowing I was correct. Muscles that were somehow still clenched eased at the thought that Grey Hair had clocked out for now.

I offered a cuss in his honor as I appraised his teammate, watching Obito-san map out some route in his mind as his lower lip puffed further and further out. He hunched forward, muttering a curse-etched phrase, the bit of which I caught as "-telling me to… like I couldn't… teme!". Straightening up, he scratched his rear and lowered his goggles over his eyes. With an impressive hop, he leapt into the tree, making the action look easy from what must've been years of training.

A few seconds later, I heard him curse, "Kuso!" as Tsume-san's snarl boomed through the undergrowth.

Small though it was, a smile crept across my lips. I stepped out from my hideaway and leaned against the ragged bark, gazing where the sounds of snarling and cusses continued. The faintest tickle grew in the back of my throat, and it took me a moment to realize it was laughter. Startled with that recognition, I didn't realize that the sounds had faded into forest until I was alone once more.

Shaking my head, I sat down and shut my eyes. I stayed that way – dancing between reality and dreamland – until light tickled the front of my lids. Slowly, I opened my gaze to stare up at the pink gash bleeding across the sky, soiling the velvet black of night. The mountains bit through the last of the storm's clouds, their scarlet caps visible like fangs fresh from the kill.

I squinted up at that faint beginnings of dawn, judging that it was only just a bit longer before Tsukiyomi-sama would succumb once more to Amaterasu-sama, and night would give way to day. Routine meant that the priests would rise as the sun cracked over the mountains' peaks, and I could only assume the shinobi wouldn't be too far behind. Since I hadn't changed out of my clothes the night before, I was ready enough to face the day, though I knew Azuumi-senpai would chide me for a host of reasons: a knotted mass of bed hair, an unwashed face, the dirt clinging to wrinkled clothes, and a set of unbrushed teeth.

Knowing the last of those would be the most serious, I padded over to the garden and snatched a couple of mint leaves. Once again reveling at the obeisance of my ankles, I skipped over to the well, ignoring the faint sting with every other bound. I dredged up a bucket of cold spring water and shoved a palm-full into my mouth. I swished and gurgled it as I washed my face and hands. Spitting out into the grass, I quickly brushed at my teeth with a finger, popping in the bundle of mint leaves at the end to chew it into a pulp.

_That'll do it, _I considered, the herb bursting from my mouth into my nose. I spat it out and rinsed again with another mouthful of water. Shivering in the sudden chill, the assault on my senses was accompanied by a third; a familiar tangle of threads was approaching. I twisted around as once more the shrine's door opened, Akio-senpai stepping out with that bear-like shamble. The shadows beneath his eyes were darker than usual, highlighting the tinge of scarlet above them.

_So he didn't sleep too well either, _I considered, shifting my weight from one foot to the next. His words from last night replayed themselves in my head, and my throat closed.

He strode up beside me and placed his hands in the bucket of cool water. With a quick swipe, he yanked some through his shorn hair and let it run down his neck in little rivulets. Digging his elbows into the roughhewn stone wall edging the pit, he cast a suspicious glance around then turned an appraising eye on me. He cocked an eyebrow, silently asking, 'We alone?'

I nodded and settled beside him against the well, scrutinizing the dark water sloshing below.

"I can't believe Yori-kun can snore so loudly," he grumbled next to me, running a hand along the back of his neck. "Wouldn't have slept anyway though."

I folded my arms and laid my chin upon the makeshift pillow. I kept my gaze on the water, feeling weirdly guilty that I wasn't even able to look him in the eye.

He grunted, coming to the correct conclusion with the usual alacrity. "So you were outside then?"

I glanced at him from beneath a curled tangle of auburn, my eyes prickling. "Am I really that-" I couldn't finish my question as my voice seemed to just shut off, my throat clenching on the word 'scary'. _'Wolves do not show fear,' _came Ka-san's voice, rising up from the depths of my memories and steadying me. I gritted my teeth and turned from my friend, the heat rising into my cheeks.

"Yes," he answered, his voice cool, honest. "But it's not because of why you think." He straightened up and rubbed off the loose pebbles clinging desperately to his arms but said nothing more.

For some reason, I didn't need him to. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, another small grin playing at my lips. He glanced over at me, a wisp of his own smile nudging at his cheeks. Suddenly, awareness flashed in his gaze, and he looked down at my arms, his eyes rounding. "Well, if they didn't confuse you for a jinchūriki before," he muttered until falling into silence.

I furrowed my brow, finally asking the question that had been plaguing me. "_What _is a jinchūriki? Why is everyone calling me one?"

He looked over at me, surprise dancing in his eyes. "No one has told you?"

I shook my head, my cheeks puffed out petulantly. "Everyone knows but me."

Akio-senpai let out a small breath. "Well, I guess the simplest explanation is that jinchūriki are people who've been sealed, willingly or not, with one of the Tailed Beasts." He glanced down at me. "You know what those are, right?"

I thought back to my lessons with Yuuta-sama and gave a hesitant nod, not wanting to look like even more of an idiot. Still frowning, I muttered, "But I'm not one, right? Even though everyone keeps calling me that."

He shook his head. "Mira-chan, I thought for a long time that you might be. You have similar abilities, a similar aura about you, but you also can do things they can't. And they can do things you can't." He jerked his chin at me, his eyes flashing down again at my healthy arms who had recently brandished several cuts. "How'd you manage that? You've never been able to self-heal like jinchūriki."

I looked down at myself, appraising my handiwork. The scabbed scratches had sunk into the tanned flesh, leaving no trace of itself except in soon-to-be-forgotten memories. "I just copied that kunoichi," I said. "It looked hard, and I wanted to do it too."

A hushed whistle flitted through his teeth. "Frightening. Truly frightening. If you were raised as a shinobi-" He shook his head, the wisp of the smile strengthening to the ghost of one. "Well, I doubt a kami would even stand a chance against you."

I beamed at that, my cheeks nearly twitching in the unusual effort. But that glow within me soon darkened, the smile faded. "Then I wish I had been."

His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

I straightened up, the word bolting out of my mouth, "Habu." I fixed him with sharp pupils. "She'd be dead by now. If I had been a shinobi, none of this would have happened. I could've stopped her from hurting anyone."

He dipped his chin, the sigh falling out of his mouth like rotten flesh falling of some nearly dead thing deep inside. His shoulders sagged, his back hunched. The wrinkles deepened as he furrowed his brow, the crow's feet darkening his gaze further. For the first time ever, he looked old. "It's almost funny," he murmured, turning his gaze to the depths of the well, his eyes turning black and clouded with the reflection. "There really is no escaping your past is there?"

I narrowed my eyes but made no sound. I doubt he would've heard me even if I had spoken. It was a minute before he straightened up, turning into a black shadow as the sun ascended into its throne behind him. "I suppose I'll have to complete my final mission after all."


	27. Chapter 27

Akio-senpai's words faded, joining the rest of his enigmatic past. Before I could ask – before I could even form an expression – the door once again slid open, and we were joined by the others.

Yuuta-sama stepped out first, Minato-san a step behind. Our gūji's eyes were bright, twinkling with that inner light of his, as his wrinkled cheeks bunched back in a smile. Even Minato-san was smiling, agreeing with the priest about the beauty of some town they had both visited at some point. Yet again, I was startled by the intense blue of the shinobi's eyes – a color I had only seen shimmer from the snow-melt lake. Like that lake, their color only seemed to intensify beneath the equally vivid yellow rays.

_Surrounded by old-timers I guess it's strange to see something else_, I considered as Akio-senpai stiffened beside me. My hair stood on end as waves of tension rolled off his body and crashed into mine. My battered body let out a collective sigh and readied itself for another day of constant stress.

Yet hypocrisy showed itself almost immediately. I had to hide clenched fists behind my back as Grey Hair stepped out onto the grass. The murderous flames in his eyes had since dulled from last night, leaving two dull coals in their place. Trying to belay my rigidity, I watched him callously scan the grounds, his gaze merely glossing over my presence to settle on Akio-senpai. I kept the glower from my expression, choosing to ignore the fact that he hadn't overlooked me out of guilt but apathy.

"Ohayou!" The cheerful, bright voice stole my attention as Rin-san hoped onto the grass. She fixed us all with a warm smile that I felt obliged to return – albeit with a substantially subdued upturn of my lips.

Yuuta-sama sidled up next to me, patting me lightly on my shoulder. "Sleep well?" he asked, his eyes dimming as they traced what must've been my dark circles and wan cheeks.

I made a small noise of assent that was drowned out by a yodeling yawn. Yori-senpai shuffled into the grass, grumbling the usual curses at the morning. Azuumi-senpai smacked him on the arm, trailing him with her light, quick feet. He moaned for a moment but caught himself as his gaze fell upon the shinobi who had gathered to one side.

Turning pale, he trotted up to Akio-senpai's side, shooting out a greeting to everyone before ducking to the reservoir and beginning the ritual ablutions. Azuumi-senpai gave the outsiders a delicate bow and formal greeting – her upbringing clearly coming through. We all returned the welcome, some – _one_ – less enthusiastically than others.

She stepped over to our side and followed Yori-senpai's example, washing her hands clean of impurity. She peered at me from under her long, silvery hair, and her lips stiffened. I gave a sheepish whisper of a smile, but she merely rolled her eyes, motioned to the water, and continued washing.

Gritting my teeth, I joined the rest of the priests, murmuring invocations along with them as we performed the cleansing temizu ritual and readied ourselves for morning prayer. The words slipped off my tongue without much thought. I could hear Yuuta-sama apologizing behind us to Minato-san. "Our thousand apologies, but we hope you can last a bit longer without breakfast. The kamigami take precedence here."

Minato-san chuckled and replied lightly, "Its fine. We need to discuss logistics and establish a proper perimeter first. Afterwards, I'm sure we'll be starving."

I shuffled over as Yuuta-sama sidled up next to me and began methodically cleansing each hand. Slowly working my way up to my elbows, I angled myself so that I could better view the shinobi, both out of wariness and curiosity. From beneath tawny strands of my hair, I watched as Minato-sensei gave a light clap, keeping his hands together as he bent forward to speak with his two pupils.

"Ano." Minato-san straightened up with a frown. "Where is Obito-kun?"

"Late as usual," Kakashi-san muttered, glowering and crossing his arms.

Rin-san pursed her lips and glanced around with round, chestnut eyes. "I'm sure he'll be here soon. He was just supposed to wash up."

Kakashi-san directed his frown to her. "You're too easy on him, Rin. He's never going to learn if-"

"Miko-chan!" Yori-senpai whispered, tugging at my arm. "Come on."

I turned and glared at him for the nickname but realized the rest of the priests were moving to the haiden to begin the ceremony. As we walked away, he gave my shoulder a light pinch, stifling a laugh as I shook him off. He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Looking at something?"

I jerked forward out of his reach, cheeks flushing, brow darkening at his suggestion. I turned half a face onto him as he stepped up beside me. I bared my fangs in a silent growl at his teasing as we both bowed.

I could hear the broad grin, the raised brow in his impish tone. "What's that in your teeth? Mint leaf?"

His laughter crashed over me as I ducked my chin, cheeks turning a deeper shade. I quickly scrubbed at my teeth with my fingers, eyes wide as Azuumi-senpai stalked past me. I couldn't help but smirk in revenge as she stalked up to Yori-senpai and pinched his ear, making him whine a soft 'ow'.

"Be respectful!" she hissed, letting go. She twisted on her heel and passed through the gate in the tamagaki wall and up the steps into the haiden.

Yori-senpai met my gaze and shrugged his shoulders with a grin. I blinked, fixed him with a scowl, and stuck my tongue out. I twisted to enter the holy grounds as he mockingly protested behind me, "Wait! Not fair! How is she not punished?"

As I scampered into the inner shrine, I could swear I heard him murmur, "Finally back, eh?"

I furrowed my brow at that as I lowered into my seat and settled onto my knees. With that, I shut my eyes. I hated being in here, hated being forced to remember – relive – that night. I could hear the rest of the priests take their position on floorboards still rough with repair. Akio-senpai hit the ritual bell once with a mallet, Yuuta-sama began the ceremony, and I curled my fingers around the prayer beads.

I hadn't come back for the first few weeks after the incident; the pain was still too fresh. However, Yuuta-sama had cornered me one morning and, in the angriest I had ever seen him, chastised me for neglecting my duties. That day, I staggered into the haiden – afraid for everyone's lives – only for nothing to happen. And every day after, nothing continued to happen.

I could feel my hands shaking, knew my knuckles must've turned white. I strove with everything I had to reject that other-world, to encase myself firmly in flesh. Time always passed slowly, and I had to keep myself from sprinting out of the room at the last words of the prayer. Of course, when today's ceremony ended, I nearly tripped in my haste to escape.

Forcing myself to remain walking in the holy ground, I bee-lined for the tamagaki gate when Azuumi-senpai snaked her hand around my wrist, chaining me, trapping me. With that steady grip, she walked out with me, heeling me like some sort of dog and halted when she did. Knowing from experience that there was no true escape, I surrendered to my captor and lowered my head as the deluge fell. I did my best to tune out the majority of the chiding as the rest filed past us: Akio-senpai stony-faced, Yori-senpai sticking his tongue out at me, and Yuuta-sama just grinning airily.

In a bark that would make Ka-san proud, Azuumi-senpai finished, "Now go wash up and then join me in the kitchen."

With a sulking nod, I trotted into the building and wound my way to my bedroom. I scrunched my nose at the new scents as I entered; metal, sweat, dandelions – I looked accusingly at the freshly folded bed of Rin-san. My shoulders fell as I shook my head and began to undress.

Folding myself within layers of towels, I trotted to the bathroom and washed up as succinctly as I could. I grimaced as I yanked a comb through my knotted and hair, nearly breaking the handle in the process. Finished, I glared at the bristles with fresh clumps of my hair and grumbled that this was only serving to make me bald. A quick glance at my reflection told me I'd pass the bare minimum of Azuumi-senpai's standards, and I trotted back to my room.

I threw on my usual white top and hopped around as I stuffed on the red bottoms. I hissed as I accidentally banged my elbow on the wall, but eventually won a battle in the clothing war.

When I strode into the kitchen, Azuumi-senpai scanned me up and down, giving a small frown but a curt nod before handing me a bag of soy beans to prepare natto. I joined her in cooking breakfast as Yori-senpai set the table and then began lugging in pail after pail of water for us. All the while, we were treated to the hearty humming of Yuuta-sama as he worked in his study.

Akio-senpai was nowhere to be seen, but I caught on as Yori-senpai shucked off a sheen of sweat and huffed, "Hope it's this hard leading around the shinobi."

I clenched my teeth, worry filling me at the thought of him surrounded by hands holding kunai. With that anxiety, I nearly knocked the huddle of tea cups off the counter. Azuumi-senpai gave a light 'tsk', preparing the miso soup with the efficiency of a weathered cook. She checked on the steaming rice, and seemingly absentmindedly, she murmured, "Mira-chan?"

I looked up from pouring the soy sauce and took in her expression. My eyes rounded.

Her voice caught itself, yet she managed to force out, "How're you?"

I cocked my head at her, that disquiet doubling within my chest as I watched the water pool in her eyes. I gave a small shrug, forcing out a queasy smile to appease her.

She closed the lid on the rice, sniffled, and turned to the soup. She stirred it lightly and pursued, "Well, I just want you to know I'm here for you." She lowered her face to the pot, possibly disguising another snivel as if she were taking in the scent of the pot. "But maybe you'll make friends with them? You get to finally spend time with kids your age."

I recoiled at that and deepened my focus on mixing the spices.

"Oh," she started again, her voice regaining its normal strength. "Maybe to help with that, you should keep your growling to a minimum." I could see her hunch apologetically at the edge of my sight. "It's not very-" She gave a light cough, knowing she was treading on uneven ground. I knew she was thinking the word 'human' but she tossed out "ladylike" instead.

I pursed my lips but understood where she was coming from. None of the shinobi's expressions were too friendly when I had spoken with the wolves. _Though that could've been due to the situation_, I countered. Still, I was too tired to fight with her about something so inconsequential so I just started pouring in the soy sauce, completing the last of the meal.

"Agreed!" Yori-senpai piped in as he heaved another bucket into the room. "Can't go scaring them off now, can we, Okami-chan? What else would you go staring at?"

I wrinkled my nose but said nothing. If those words had come from anyone else, I'd have lunged for their throats right then and there.

Still, I didn't have too much time to think about it. My head swung towards the front entrance as I felt Akio-senpai's familiar tangle of chords. It was only a few seconds before nearly inaudible footsteps came patting towards the kitchen. Akio-senpai came in, his expression set. Minato-san followed him, equally decided. Whatever had occurred, it seemed that the tension had eased somewhat between them. The three shinobi followed in, completing the look of ease: Obito-san was still yawning, Rin-san was blushing and glancing at Kakashi-san, and Kakashi-san was ignoring her with his eyes trained on a book.

"Oh?" Obito-san said when he saw Yori-senpai struggling to hold another pail of water to wash the carrots and quickly ran over. "Let me help you there, Ojii-san,"" he stated, taking the load from him.

"Ojii-san?" Yori-senpai murmured, gratefully handing off the load. "Never thought I'd be called that. I'm not that old, am I?" He motioned towards a corner. "You can just set it over there. Thank you, Obito-kun."

Goggles congenially dropped it off onto the shelf as the adults exchanged a few pleasantries and settled around the table. Even though we had extended it by throwing a cover over a wooden crate, it was still decently cramped, and I frantically sought a spot next to my senpais. However, my heart only stiffened as I saw the lot I was given.

Eyes trained on the bowl in front of me, I lowered into a seat at the end of the table next to Rin-san, opposite of the two boys. Strange jitters ran across my chest as I shifted uncomfortably, my eyes flicking between the three of them. Rin-san was smiling at me amiably. Goggles was nearly asleep with his chin resting on his hands. Grey Hair merely turning a page of his book.

_A year ago I'd have been dying to have a meal with shinobi, _I muttered in my mind.

As the adults lightly conversed at their end, the situation only grew more awkward with the silence at ours. I could almost feel Azuumi-senpai's corrective pinch to urge me to speak, to be a good hostess. I clenched my hands beneath the table and out of sight. My skin was prickling with the irritability of it all. My tongue fumbled in my mouth, but I somehow managed to slur out, "Did you all sleep well?"

Rin-san's eyes brightened as she gave a nod. "Great! It was nice to be able to have a shower and sleep on a bed again."

"After all the healing yesterday," Obito-san asserted, eyes shining, "you earned it." His eyes were still full of admiration as he stuffed a spoonful of natto into his mouth. Then several more.

"I hope I didn't bother you," Rin-san confessed, worry weighting down her expression. It was clear she was reflecting upon the bedsheets I had flung into a corner.

Stinging embarrassment made me quickly wave her off. "No, no. I just needed some fresh air." My shoulders sunk a centimeter in relief as her smile returned even brighter than before.

Obito-san spoke next, his words barely understandable through the mouthful of food. "I could barely sleep. All I could think about were yokai."

Kakashi-san gave a small "tsch". Rin-san gave him some inscrutable look while Obito-san gave him another well-practiced glare. He puffed out a lip but turned back to me, cheeks flushed. "So?" he jabbed, surprisingly energetic for the boy who was nearly asleep two minutes ago. He glanced suspiciously around, a shudder working its way down his neck. "There any oni or tengu around here?"

I tilted my head at him, eyes narrowing lightly. _Was this some way of interrogating me? Did they suspect something about the kamigami? _I had to choose my words carefully and quickly; I could see my delayed response only cause his eyes to widen further in panic. With a small nod, I assented, "Yes, though not at the shrine. They'd risk angering the kami. They live out in the Ancient Wood."

At that he nearly jumped from his seat, but his knees hit the table. With a lurch some of the food was nearly tossed but quick reflexes on all of our parts saved them from toppling over. Even Kakashi-san, distracted as he turned a page, steadied his cup of tea easily. I could feel Rin-san eyeing me appreciatively as I lowered the pot of tea back onto the table.

Obito-san apologized, rubbing the back of his neck, only to mutter, "Knew I felt something last night! It was like something kicked my ankle!"

Kakashi-san made another noise and received another glare. He ignored it and just turned another page in his book.

For a moment, curiosity overtook me, and I glanced over in his direction. Not to look at him, but to try and make out the title of the book nearly obscured by his hands. Intrigue deepened as I recognized the name of an author of one of my favorite books. Yuuta-sama had bemoaned that he hadn't brought the whole series with him after I had finished the first volume, and I had thought I'd never find out what happened to the main character – a shinobi named Kagami.

I cocked my head, trying to see if this could possibly be the sequel, but was brought up short by a flash of those cold, territorial eyes behind the book cover. I looked away, more annoyed than embarrassed that he had caught me.

I reached for my tea and sipped at it, turning my attention onto the conversation between Obito-san and Rin-san. The shinobi was glaring around the room, eyes sharp with suspicion, lips pursed. Rin-san meanwhile was chastising, "She said there weren't any in here, Obito-kun. Stop worrying."

His eyes flashed towards his tea cup, and he thrust a finger at it. "I'm watching you," he threatened, his gaze lifting up to catch Rin-san's light giggle.

Even I couldn't help a small grin, my eyes glinting and ears perking as I leaned forward.

I don't know why I did it. I'd berate myself for long hours after – my idiocy a ghost that would haunt me even in twilit recollections years later. It wasn't that something sparked within me: it was just a need to adjust the heavy burden I'd been shouldering for far too long. It would crush me if I didn't; after, it would be heavier with the weight of what I'd done.

The impulsive idiot that I was reached out and gently, oh-so-gently, dipped my mind into the musubi and gave a light little tap to a small tangle of effervescent threads. Obedient to its nature, the cup wiggled. It was a tiny, silent movement that could've been dismissed as an accidental jabbing of a knee to the table's underside. It would've even gone unnoticed by most, but these were shinobi.

Obito-san jumped in his seat, banging into the table that shoved him back town, launching his bowl into the air. Rin-san's quick reflexes saved the meal as the boy accosted the cup with, "Come on out, yokai!"

I couldn't help but cover my mouth, trying to stifle the laugh that bubbled its way up from my stomach. I looked at Rin-san whose eyes had narrowed on Kakashi-kun, suspicion underlying the mirth that got her laughing too. I could feel the adults' eyes upon us from their end of the table, and I furtively glanced at them to see their expressions. I wished I hadn't. All of my senpais' gazes were locked onto me, looking dumbstruck.

My giggle died in my throat as the smile dimmed on my face as guilt overtook me. I twisted my attention back to Obito-san who was now holding the cup, inspecting it for some sort of trick. At the edge of my vision, I noticed Kakashi-san watching me, his eyes shifting from my expression to my hands that hadn't moved.

I didn't look to Akio-senpai. I didn't need to be told. I knew I'd screwed up.


	28. Chapter 28

Nervous, I clenched at my prayer beads hoping that I hadn't destroyed everything we were trying to achieve. But the silence lasted only for a moment as a light trickle of murmuring grew to a normal hum at the adults' end of the table. My ears perked as I picked up on Yori-senpai's voice, his whisper just harsh enough to make the words distinguishable. He bent over to Azuumi-senpai and gasped, "Was Mira-chan _laughing_?"

Azuumi-senpai bobbed her head up and down, eyes again watering.

Rubbing the goosebumps from his arms, Obito-san fixed me with a steely eye. "You have a really evil laugh, you know that?"

As Rin-san hit him on the arm, muttering something about being polite, I turned away, some pressure lifting from my shoulders. Perhaps I'd gone unnoticed. Perhaps they just thought I had kicked the table to make the tea cup move. I was just convincing myself of this, just letting my hair settle, when the words came.

"I see you've healed quickly." It was a statement that expected no response – a jab to test my defenses. As usual, it barely looked like his lips were moving under that mask, but I knew he was the one who'd spoken: the glint off of those cutting, emotionless eyes were gouging into me. With deliberate slowness, Kakashi-san turned his eyes back to his novel and kept reading. He acted as if he had already catalogued what he needed – had understood exactly what happened and even more.

I wrinkled my nose, that prickling feeling growing until it had me shifting in my seat. I bowed over my plate and shoveled food into my mouth, praying that'd be enough of a hiding spot. I hoped the other two hadn't heard him – hadn't been paying attention – but of course they had. Kakashi-san's words and my twitching garnered Obito-san's attention as he looked towards me, down at my arms, back to my face. His eyes narrowed only to suddenly flare wide at the exclamation, "Yeah! Your arms were all cut up right?"

Rin-san made a slight little 'hmm' and nodded, eyes still thoughtful from before. "Jinchūriki are naturally fast healers," she explained in a calm, light voice. "The medical-nin study a bit about them. Apparently it's something to do with excess chakra." She gave me a soft, understanding smile as if she wanted to assure me that I shouldn't be worried, that this was completely natural and even unimpressive.

I glanced down at my food, wondering how much these jinchūriki were like me, how such a complete coincidence could be possible._ No luck I guess, _I muttered, trying to cool my flushed cheeks through sheer willpower as shoveled food into my mouth. _Like Akio-senpai said while my abilities were unique and my chakra had a strange nature, I have no sealing marks. Hell, I wouldn't even be healed now without focusing. I have nothing to do with those real jinchūriki. _

At the other end of the table, I heard Azuumi-senpai clear her throat – a usual criticism that made me snap to attention. I glanced at her and she lifted her chopsticks to her mouth at an exaggeratedly slow speed. I looked down at my plate to realize that I'd eaten half my meal in three bites. _Chew! _I imagined her voice scolding me. I forced a long breath and slowed down, chewing thoughtfully to spare myself from answering anything.

As if sensing my discomfort, Rin-san pioneered the conversation with, "Hey Obito-kun, do you have a sharpening stone? My kunai are blunt."

Obito-san scrunched his chin, reaching back into his memory. "Now that I think about it, mine are too. I have one, but it may not be in the best shape after last mission. I'll have to work it a little." They continued on in technical terms that I couldn't follow until minutes had passed, and the tension seemed to have successfully eased. Even Kakashi-san added a word here and there – usually to negate whatever Obito-san had claimed would be the best method of sharpening weapons.

As I calmed down, curiosity sparked me to attempt my best to follow the conversation. But they had moved onto other topics. Names of places and people I never knew nor probably ever know began popping into conversation. There was mention of Ichiraku Ramen, someone named Gai, another named Asuma, some sort of Chūnin exam. Puffing my lip out, I considered how the rock I childishly called 'Rock' looked nice with the new layer of moss.

Slowly the conversation returned to the present situation as Obito-san stretched his arms wide and leaned back. He forced out alongside an unhappy yawn, "Setting up tripwires and paper bombs." He shook out his shoulders. "Not excited. Boring stuff that should be easier to do than it is. Plus, I'm sore from all this traveling. Who would've thought it'd take this long to get out here?"

Grey Hair glanced at him, arching a reproachful brow. "You skipped warm-downs again?"

Goggles puffed out his cheeks, readying to snap something back. However, I couldn't help but cut in, "How much did you travel to get here? How long did it take?"

Rin-san pursed her lips, but it wasn't a defensive look. She seemed to be honestly considering the answer as she turned to Obito-san. Before she could get the words out, it was Kakashi-san who interjected with, "Directly, it'd have been four days." He folded over a new page. "With the war forcing us to take the backroads, it was closer to two weeks."

"That long?" I gaped. I couldn't fathom travelling that kind of distance. The longest scouts in the forest had taken around a month, but those were when we skirted along the edges of our territory at the bases of the mountains. I couldn't imagine travelling in one direction for that amount of time. I only had books which told me what it was like outside these mountains: I couldn't even imagine what it would be like in person. After my ankle hadn't healed properly, I had assumed I'd never be able to, but now-

Rin-san snagged my attention as she affirmed, "We were coming back from another mission when we received the message and were assigned here."

"Yeah!" Obito-san butt in, chest puffing out. "Orders directly from the Hokage! He knew we'd be the best team for the job."

"Or that we were just the closest," Kakashi-san sniped, holding his book in one hand picking up his spoon in the other. He teased his food as something flickered in his eyes – some sort of knowledge he wasn't letting on.

I got the sense that he knew some other reason, or at least had his speculations. It was like he was dangling the information in front of his comrades: I wasn't sure whether it was to gloat over them or to get them to ask. Scrunching my nose, I didn't want him to steer the conversation away: something I had long thought dead was awakening inside me. Before anyone else could say anything, I asked "What's it like? Outside the forest."

Goggles leaned back in his chair, fixing the goggles on his forehead. "You've never been?" A proud sort of smirk melted his lips as the goggles smacked back into place.

I stared at him, trying not to hint that I had been outside this forest once. Trying not to remember the flames of the town and the shrieks of the people. _If that even counts, _I muttered.

Yet Rin-san saved me again when she congenially poked Obito-san with, "Well you hadn't either before our first mission. Neither had I if I'm being honest." She gave a soft giggle.

Obito-san deflated, and a blush crept into his cheeks. Still, with the rebuke coming from her, he only responded with an apologetic grin softening his features.

The kunoichi turned to me and explained, "Well, we never really go sightseeing, so I don't know how much I could tell you, but there's not much out here. Maybe a little logging or mining community or two? This area is kind of off-the-map. Literally. You have to travel a bit to hit the major roads, but when you do, it all becomes a bit more regular and you actually come across a bath house once in a while. Then eventually you'd come across the major tourist areas."

"Though there's not too many people travelling these days," Kakashi-san added, deeming the soup worthy enough to pull down his mask and take a sip - the whole event hidden by the book he decided to lift up again.

"Well with a war going on," Obito-san shot, as if he was trying to embarrass his teammate by relaying so obvious a fact.

Grey Hair merely flipped to the next page, not even deigning to feign hearing the remark.

I put my chopsticks down, the hunger I had now wouldn't be satisfied by the food. I looked down at my tea cup, considering their words alongside the stories my senpais had told me. It seemed like there was a much wider world out there, and now with my leg healed, I could actually reach it. Something jolted around inside of me, but I'd have been a fool to name it joy. In truth, I had lost the name for that feeling.

Obito-san turned a lowered brow on me. "Yeah, speaking of which, do you know anything about that? The war?"

I scratched my inner wrist and gave a light shrug of my shoulders. "Only what my senpais have told me," I stated, furrowing my brow and thinking back over the past. "Though I feel like I always kind of knew. Like there was blood in the air, you know? That's what Kizuato-san always said anyway."

Rin-san raised a brow at me, and my cheeks flushed as I panicked that I had said something wrong, given something away. Obito-san though, jerked forward and hit his elbows on the table.

"That's right!" he said, somehow making a mental leap from on topic to the next. "That's what you called that one wolf! I couldn't believe it when I first heard about the whole raised-in-the-wild thing! That's what the town said when we came, and it's obviously true." He glanced at the others and slapped the air with a hand. "It's like the Inuzaka clan but wilderness version!" He fixed me with a non-threatening but too intent of a gaze. "How was that? What was it like? Did you howl at night and stuff?" He leaned forward conspiratorially. "I swear I caught Kata-san doing that at a full moon."

The blush now fully fresh on my neck from the now-gone panic was what saved me. Rin-san, ever-vigilant, noticed it and quickly punished, "Obito-kun!" She must've pinched him under the table as well since he gave an involuntary leap.

I didn't say anything, glad to not have explain any further and risk exposing more information than I'd want. Entirely grateful, I couldn't help but consider how much Azuumi-senpai would've have loved to mentor the bright-eyed Rin-san. Easing back from a tentative subject, the kunoichi kindly asked, "So what do you usually do here in the temple?"

I tentatively grinned at her, letting my thanks be known through that gesture as something loosened within me. I had prepared my answer for this. I began a rough outline of my schedule at the temple, making sure to inundate it with enough boring detail to help gloss over other gaps. I talked about prayer, studies with Yuuta-sama, gardening, and repairing. I studiously avoided any mention of the kamigami, while overall attempting to make it sound like I had a full schedule. Knowing that I couldn't blatantly ignore Kizuato-san and the rest of my family, I waited until I was surer of myself, when I rallied enough to admit, "And every now and then I go back to the forest to see my family." I gave a shallow shrug, trying to hide the fact that I was choosing my words carefully. "They were the ones who raised me until I lived at the temple."

I could see Rin-san's and Obito-san's eyes perk at that last mention but they had been glazing over since around two minutes in. The only one who I hadn't been to shake was Kakashi-san. While he appeared to have been reading his book, I could tell by the way that his eyes moved fitfully across the page that he was intently listening. Towards the end of my speech, he had given up his sham and bored into me with the brunt of his obsidian gaze.

"And somehow with all that work," Kakashi-san dropped in slightly lowering his book but not before adjusting his mask once more over his face, making the following words just barely muffled, "you were being taught ninjutsu?"

I could see the other shinobi blink, fully shaking out of the doldrums into which I had sent them adrift. I kept my face neutral, knowing that he must be referring to what he had seen in the woods, to what he had just seen with Obito-san's tea cup. His brow lowered as he pressed, "And not just any ninjutsu, but one where you don't even use hand symbols? Did Noburu teach you?"

'_San_,' I added in my mind testily. I knew I had to answer him quick, but I didn't know what to say. Would lying with a 'yes' or acting stupid with an otherwise truthful 'no' cause more questions to be raised. I realized my mouth was gaping like a landed fish as I sought the better long-run path. However, I was saved when Yuuta-sama and Minato-san approached us.

"How'd you like your meal?" Yuuta-sama asked our end of the table. We all answered in varying degrees of enthusiastic assent, but the words seemed small in the air that was filled with that other question. I could still feel Kakashi-san's eyes searing into my neck while the other two glanced back to me, wondering if I'd bother answering.

If Minato-san sensed it, he didn't let on. He turned to his students and ordered, "You know your duties. Clean up, and head out. I'll be with you in a moment." They nodded and grabbed their plates, bringing them over to the sink despite Azuumi-senpai jumping up and trying to prevent them with insistences and shooing motions.

I didn't get to see who won that argument when Yuuta-sama snagged my attention with a wink before turning to Minato-san and lifting an inviting palm.

The shinobi gave the old man a smile only to turn and nod a deference to me. I was bewildered for a moment before I saw Yori-senpai in the back mouthing, 'Go into the office'. I couldn't read his face – whatever features there were too muddled for me to interpret the emotions.

As I twisted on my heel, I cast a glance at Akio-senpai, but he wasn't looking to me; he was busy watching Minato-san, his dark eyes like a beast appraising fire. Turning my back to the room, I shuffled into Yuuta-sama's office, followed by its owner and our guest. Yuuta-sama shut the door with a soft click behind us, casting us all in dusty shadow as Minato-san squared his body to mine.

"Mira-chan," he began, his voice strong, collected. "I'd like to discuss something important with you." His blue eyes were twinkling, kind and warm, yet I swear I could see the depths in them – the darkness that spoke of a cool, calculating iciness. But it wasn't hostile. No: while this man could easily rip me to shreds, there was nothing in him that could ever desire to. Even still, I braced, waiting for the tidal wave of fate that would either drown me or pull me into worse currents.

Probably noticing my tension, he let a gentle and warm smile wash over me. Involuntarily, I relaxed. "Don't worry," he said. "You won't have to make a decision yet. You don't even have to talk right now if you don't want to. Just let me explain an offer I think it'd be in your best interest to take."

I gave him a small nod to show him that I was listening. I clenched my fists behind my back, already knowing the words that would come out of his mouth. Already preparing myself for what was opening itself before me.

"Mira-chan," Minato-san said, "come to the Leaf Village with us."

I didn't say it then, but I already knew my answer.


	29. Chapter 29

"Mira-chan, come to the Leaf Village with us."

I stared at him, his words bouncing off an answer already solidified within me. My lungs forgot to move and began to burn with stale air as my heart hiccupped into overdrive. I quickly slammed my arms across my chest, hiding my quivering hands in my armpits. Despite all of this, I kept my face straight; at least, as straight as possible as I resumed the gnawing on my inner cheeks.

I glanced at Yuuta-sama, gleaning from his gentle smile back that he had known this was coming. _Had they talked about this? _My jaw clenched as a searing heat slid down the back of my throat – intuition drowning any logic with the bitter taste of betrayal. I shifted my stance, feeling my world begin quaking around me as I felt suddenly alone – as if I had been abandoned once again. I glanced towards the door but stayed where I was. _Wolves do not show fear. _

I lowered my chin as Yuuta-sama began to speak. "This is indeed a gracious offer," he murmured, bowing his head to the shinobi. He raised a brow at me, but when I made no response he gently cleared his throat, prodding me again. I still did nothing.

Minato-san's gave a sad sort of smile, his eyes softening to his eyes soft as he confessed, "I know that we have just met, and that you may not trust us yet." He gave a disarming smile, but let it fade as his features sharpened, his seriousness regained. "But let me explain myself more fully."

His eyes landed upon me, his dewy eyes hardened to blue ice. "I won't lie to you, Mira-chan, though I have a feeling you may not trust me anyway." He cocked his head at me, an appreciative little flicker dancing at the corner of his lips before his face grew solemn. "But, if anything, you should have at least recognized this: you are not safe here, Mira-chan. Not any longer. The Mist shinobi know of this temple now. They know you have one of the Tailed Beasts and, and they know there is nothing stopping them."

I blanched as I understood the words behind his words. That the shinobi would keep coming until they got me. And that by my staying here, the pack and the priests were sentenced to die. My stomach quivered, and I felt my meal resurface on the back of my tongue.

"Yet," Minato-san cut through my thoughts, raising his palms, "even if no other Village was after you, you still shouldn't stay." He furrowed his brow, shaking his head slightly. "What happened to the town_ cannot_ happen again. And Yuuta-sama told me what it'd done to you." He shook his head and met my eyes again. "The jinchūriki truly do lead a hard life. I've seen it with the Leaf's own jinchūriki of the Nine Tails. But I also know it can be a happy one."

I didn't know what 'Nine Tails' meant, but I quickly gleaned its substance when Yuuta-sama gave an impressed murmur. I narrowed my eyes and curled my fingers into fists.

Minato-san nodded, his gaze stern. "I hope you understand that that information is not to be repeated. I only told you both now to show that the Leaf Village is more than capable to handle any outbursts of a Tailed Beast." He gestured towards himself then the door, referencing the other shinobi. "I have a lot of experience with the Nine Tails jinchūriki, and though my team is young, we are perfectly suited for the unique challenges of dealing with a Tailed Beast.

"Kakashi-kun is the brightest prodigy our Village has seen in generations. Obito-kun is an Uchiha, the clan famous for its visual prowess and even the ability to control the Tailed Beasts. Rin-chan is a talented healer, and is rather adept at keeping people level-headed." He gave a disarming grin. "For many reasons, my team is one of the best for this assignment."

"Wi-" The word caught in my throat, tickling the back of my tonsils like some sort of tiny feather. A vengeful heat built in my throat as my gaze limped over to and pawed at Yuuta-sama's. "Will you come too?"

The priest tried to keep the pity and heartbreak from his eyes, but he had never been particularly good at shielding his emotions. Still, his words managed just enough severity for me to understand there would be no convincing him. With a light shake of his head, he admitted, "I doubt any of us – with the possible exception of Akio-san – would be able to make the trip now."

Minato-san leaned forward and jutted his palm out. "We would make adjustments. We wouldn't abandon you here if you wanted to come with us. It's probably safer for you if-"

The gūji gave a light, tired chortle. "Arigato, but my place is here, Minato-san. Same for the others. We all were drawn to this shrine, and we all found something here we couldn't find anywhere else." He turned to me, his eyes as soft and wet as dew-covered moss. "Gomen-ne [Sorry], Mira-chan."

I bit my lip to stop it from quivering and felt a tension prying open the sides of my thighs. I looked down to see my muscles fully flexed – ready to flee or fight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shinobi shift his weight, and my eyes flashed towards his face to judge what he would do next.

I couldn't read him. _Not surprising, _I considered as my eyes narrowed, his words, heavy on my mind. _What would they do to me? Train me as a shinobi? _Despite how ridiculous that idea was, a momentary panic made my legs yelp as the muscles spasmed. Possible retorts streaked across my brain. I wanted to snarl that I hated shinobi, was terrified of them. But I settled for the least aggressive and clicked out, "And what would I do there? _Train_?"

And the dam had broken. Before he could even respond, the tension within me seized its chance. My tongue could barely move fast enough as the words tumbled out, "But I can't just become a shinobi! Even I know that! That's not something I can just do! It takes a lifetime to learn, to practice! All the characters I knew about it were practicing as soon as they could walk." I dipped my chin and looked away, grumbling, "On top of that, there was no way my ankle could take that type of abuse. I doubt it could even withstand a long run at this point without shattering."

Minato-san gave a sharp dip of his chin as he gave a sharp, horizontal swipe in the air.

I went silent as quickly as if Ka-san had growled at me. His words were crisp as he clarified, "You won't become a shinobi, Mira-chan, but a jinchūriki can't run unchecked. You should know why by now."

My eyes widened at that artful dodge, and I felt either another protest or vomit rising up my throat. But then Yuuta-sama turned to me and gave a solemn nod.

"Mira," he murmured, his voice as gentle as a breeze, "I believe you should consider this offer. You know as well as I what the kamigami have planned. They will be your komainu – your protectors."

Yellow Man blinked, obviously not familiar with the term but he gave a slight nod.

I blinked and stared at my guji, astounded that he'd be so willing to pass me onto strangers – onto _shinobi_. But I read it in his eyes then. I should've realized it sooner, should've known this was coming. It was as if all my life had been primed for this moment. Ka-san had raised me in the Ancient Wood, but when I was old enough, she had begun sending me to the mortal's land with Kizuato-san's pack. When I had grown strong enough to survive on my own, Ka-san had severed our ties, and I was sent to live amongst the humans, these priests, who raised me in their ways. Now that I had grown, had learned to be human, I was supposed to truly begin my mission. I was supposed to leave once more. And Yuuta-sama had been told this in his dreams – those dreams which he always obeyed.

I went numb as the foundation of my world once again dropped away. I felt my legs about to give way, and I grabbed onto the edge of the nearby chair to steady myself. Pain shot up from my ankle as my muscles convulsed, crunching the bones beneath them.

Yuuta-sama turned back to the shinobi, his wrinkles deepening as his cheeks crunched in seriousness. "But," he addressed Minato-san, "you should not think that one can control the kamigami."

The shinobi blinked but no frown or anger passed over his features. "Gomen-nasai, Yuuta-sama, but what do you mean?"

_No! _I looked to Yuuta-sama, terrified that he'd give away the truth. Terrified that the warning Akio-senpai had given would be completely ignored. My jaw ached as my teeth ground into each other. An iciness spread like a film across my skin, drawing up from the tips of my fingers and now wrapping around my stomach. I looked down at my arms, seeing that they had gone pale despite the tan.

Yuuta-sama folded his hands behind his back and lightly shook his head, so that his beard looked like it was a white vine tickled by the wind. "I know the world has forgotten about the kamigami. The shinobi most of all." He fixed Minato-san with flashing, jade eyes. "But these Tailed Beasts you talk of, don't you recognize them for the kamigami they are?"

The room was silent, filling up like a balloon until there was a soft 'pop' as Minato-san couldn't help but laugh. "Gomen-nasai, Yuuta-sama," he began quickly, waving his hands in front of him with a happy grin. "I don't mean to be rude. I just pictured what the Nine Tails's jinchūriki would have done if she had heard that. It's a good thing for me that she didn't."

Yuuta-sama gave him a small yet sad sort of smile and looked over to me. I knew what he was trying to tell me with that tired gaze. That this was how awry the world had become. That this exemplified the reason I needed to go.

"When?" I jerked in surprise as my voiced cracked as the word teetered and fell out of my mouth. "When would I have to leave?" I kept my eyes on my white, dead flesh.

He stopped laughing, his warm smile flickering. "As soon as possible," he admitted. "If our intelligence is correct, the longest we would have before the Mist attacked next is four days. I would like to leave here before then, so we can draw them away from the temple."

It was like an electric jolt went through me. My heart continued to batter my chest as my lungs pulled in steady gasps of air. My mind stuttered from thought to thought, from option to option. _Does Akio-senpai know about this? He'd try and stop it right? _Could _he stop it? _I blanched as a stark vision of my wrinkled, hunched senpai squared off against the Leaf: Yellow Man alone would be enough to stop him. _What about Azuumi-senpai? Yori-senpai? _The answer was soul-wrenchingly obvious: even if they objected, their loyalty to Yuuta-sama was unwavering – they would trust the guuji's final judgement. _Why wouldn't they?_

I gritted my teeth and considered fleeing to the pack. _They would let me stay. I would be safe with the- _The hope was short-lived: it broke under the images of blood seeping out of Teru-kun's eyes, the memories of Utau-kun and Ashi-chan, the mourning that the pack was only now beginning to overcome. _No, _I thought. _I can't do this to them again. I can't have them be hurt again because of me. _

I shuddered as the chill began to seep into my blood, spread throughout my core, throughout my essence. _Like the mist. _My eyes widened, and I raised my head. I stared at the two men in front of me as I found the earth beneath me again, found my core harden once more. I met the shinobi's eyes and gave him a small dip of my head. "Arigato," I murmured. "But please give me some time to think."

Minato-san appraised me with a cool expression but gave a small smile and answered, "Of course." He turned to Yuuta-sama and gave a bow. "Thank you for your time. I should leave now to help maintain the perimeter." He gave me one last look but then opened the door and walked out.

I kept my gaze towards the exit when Yuuta-sama started speaking, "Mira-chan? Would you like to talk?"

I turned to look at him, feeling as if I was staring at him from across a gulf. I shook my head slightly, noticing how his eyes seemed to widen as he saw me. Turning away, I began to pad out the door, stumbling on legs that were still seizing.

"The chocolate," I heard him call. "It's hidden in the mantle above the fireplace."

But I kept walking. I walked past the fireplace and past the stares of my senpais and walked out the door. I stumbled my way through to the center of the tall grass, and that's when I stopped. I raised my eyes to the mountain peaks in the distance and felt the ache within my bones.

_The mist, _I thought again. That's where I'd be safe. That's where no mortal could find me. That's where I'd get my answers. _I have to return to the Ancient Wood_._ I have to find the kamigami. _


	30. Chapter 30

The night was stretching out before me, and I could see the sun blushing its deep yawn as it retired behind the mountain peaks. I watched it sink further and further into its nocturnal bed and shifted my eyes to the void of the new moon. I gaped at it like I was probing the hole of a missing tooth with my tongue. It was nearly time.

I had spent the rest of the day considering my escape, planning every detail, making sure it was my only option. There was no room for error. Not only would I have to avoid the Mist shinobi, I would need to ensure that I slipped past both the Leaf and the priests. Then, I would need to make my way up into the mountain peaks and find that realm that was once my home, the one closed to me.

_I've never sensed it after I left. What if I can't find it? _I gnawed at my lip, worrying at the weak foundations of my plan. _Kizuato-san told me that only I had ever been able to find it. Even when I was sure I had walked the path to it, I wasn't able to find the mist. It's like it disappeared. But it couldn't have. Could it? _I shook my head.

_Kizuato-san must know something_, I told myself again, ignoring that I was using that hope as an excuse to justify my returning to the pack – even if it was just for the briefest of moments. I ignored the truth that my emotions were overcoming my reason: that I couldn't leave my family without saying goodbye. _Besides, _I continued, _with their help, I can travel a lot quicker. _

Already tuned into my surroundings, already searching for the edge of the Ancient Wood despite my severely limited range, I jolted as I felt a presence appear behind me. I let out a breath only to feel the emptiness yawn open within me as I recognized that familiar weaving of strings, realized who was coming, who I'd have to lie to. I turned to see Akio-senpai stepping out of the kitchen, his shoulders hunched, his face hollow. Something within me quivered slightly as I knew what else this meant; I had been saying goodbye to the others throughout the day, telling them I had agreed to leave with the shinobi at dawn. I hadn't with Akio-senpai; not yet. When I had left Yuuta-sama's office, he had already left to aid the Leaf in their morning's missions.

I could smell the fresh forest on him so I assumed he must've just returned – most likely along with the rest. I clenched my hands to hide their shaking. He straightened up as he caught my eye and jerked his chin towards the haiden.

I nodded and rose to my feet, trailing after him as he swept his way through the grass, seemingly diminishing with each step. The waves of tension rolled off of him, like he was some concentrated black star spewing waves of rage with every pulse.

When we turned the corner and were out of sight from the main building, he stopped and turned to me. He jerked his chin in the air, and I froze for a moment, knowing what he asked for. Again, I reached out into the night, winding my way through the tendrils to see if we were being watched. I frowned as I came across something, and closed my eyes to better focus on this foreign wisp. Yet as I closed in on it, it disappeared out of my range – a good twenty yards away. "Hmm," I murmured, opening my eyes, wondering if it had just been some sort of animal. _Whatever it was, _I thought, _it can't possibly hear us from that distance._

Akio-senpai's eyes were sharp, and he noticed my hesitation. He raised a brow, questioning me.

I gave a slow nod that grew stronger as I searched outward again. "No one," I murmured.

Akio-senpai let out a breath, settling on his heels as he gave a shake of his wiry, black head. He ran his thumb up his scar and looked out to the mountain ranges. "Both Yuuta-sama and Minato-san filled me in on the news." He looked down at me out of the corner of his eye. "It seems you'll be leaving soon."

I said nothing and looked away. The blockage in my throat didn't seem to let me.

I could feel his gaze upon me as he murmured, "I don't trust them, though I suppose I don't trust anyone much anymore. It seems the Leaf, at least, believe they are dealing with the Cloud's Tailed Beast. And-" He lowered his head to rub his brow. "They at least seem to be honest in their intentions even if it is so they can manipulate you, keep you under _their _control." Something almost like a growl came out of his throat. He quieted again before the words came out, soft as the night's wind. "That's why I'm glad you're going, Mira-chan."

I froze, his words bouncing off the inside of my skull, clattering thoughts around and sewing confusion. There was a strange hitch in them – something like- _Pain? _I looked up at him, wondering if it was truly pain that I had heard. And I saw it there, shimmering in the depths of the black orbs. But the pain was behind something else – something deeper, starker: knowledge. _He knows. _

I gulped and looked away, suddenly afraid. _He's on my side? He hates shinobi _that_ much? To betray Yuuta-sama's trust? Or does he- _I met his eyes again and saw the pain there once again. _Does he care that much about me? _

I choked out the words, "I don't really have any options. I can't stay here. I don't want to put everyone in danger anymore. And-And-" I choked on the words before I shoved the words, "And I want to figure everything out. The connection between these jinchūriki and the kamigami. The kami I'm dealing with. That's why I have t-to-" I refrained from saying it. From saying my plan out loud. All I could offer was a halting, "I- I know it s-sounds selfish."

I could just see him shifting his weight beside me as he nodded at my words. "Yuuta-sama says this explains his dreams. That he's seen you leaving with these shinobi. That these are the commands of the kamigami. But-" There was a pause. "I would go with you, but I'd only slow you down. I'm not as quick as I once was, not as good with ninjutsu. I want to make sure you'll be okay but people still recognize me and I-" Another long pause.

I twisted to stare at him, and for the first time ever, I saw a tear trickling down the dimple of his cheek. The drop trailed down the curve of his sad, small smile. And that's all that needed to be done; anything else would have tainted the message.

I felt water dripping off my chin before I realized I was crying. The grizzled man's smile widened as he reached out and patted me on the shoulder. "At dinner," he whispered, "stay quiet and wait for my sign." He leaned forward with a starved fox's grin. "We'll take a note from Ryuk-kun's book."

Though confused at his last words, I nodded, at least understanding the reasons behind the chosen time. I was pleased to see that we both separately agreed that was the best time to leave – when all the Leaf and priests wouldn't be in the forest, when I could excuse myself and buy some time to enter the woods that I knew better than anyone. But I knew this could easily fail just on my own, but with Akio-senpai on my side, I had an extra set of eyes on the others and extra time. But as for the mention of Ryuk – the fictional character from one of my favorite series – I was at a loss.

_What does he mean? _I thought as Akio-senpai gave me an awkward little tap on the head and walked away, his shoulders a little bit more hunched, his frame just that much smaller. I watched him go back into the house, hearing the clanging of the dinner pots through the open crack. I saw a flicker of Azuumi-senpai's uniform, and I felt my throat well up with heat at the memory of our goodbye. When I had told her, she just stared at me dumbfounded. Her lips quivered and her hands began to shake. She seemed to shake but remembered herself to only smooth out my uniform and began reciting the lessons she had ingrained into me: always take off the shoes before you enter the house, wash your face before going to bed, always say thank you, and never forget the kamigami. But nothing else.

Then the door was shut, and the world became dark again.

I stood there as the waves of the future crashed over me. Memories sank down into the pits of my stomach, settling there, weighted things that made me feel heavy and sluggish. I blinked and swiped at my nose, shuffling over to the pond, needing to do something. I dug my toes into my footholds and began to lift myself onto my branch; yet my ankle, still sore from earlier, gave way and pitched me to the floor. After the thunk of impact, I sucked a breath between my teeth, feeling a sharp sting along my palm. I looked down, seeing blood well up from skin torn off by bark. I stayed on the floor, staring as the blood began to form a little pond.

I let it pool for a minute before I gathered my concentration, focusing it all on that little patch of flesh. The threads began to reconnect, reweave themselves, the flesh following suit beneath the light glow of chakra. I was mesmerized, still astounded that the strings had taken on a visible form. _Its easy now, _I thought. _I wonder if I can help Ter-_

"Do you need help?"

I jolted, my eyes flashing up to see Rin-san standing there, her eyes wide with worry. I panicked, struggling to my feet but slipping in the mud. The girl latched onto my arm, supporting me as I gained my balance. She was frantically apologizing for her intrusion, and let go as soon as I had steadied.

"It's fine," I murmured, forcing a smile. I watched her eyes track the blood on my palm when I sheepishly wiped it against my hakama, then offered it to her to reveal the knitted, healthy and calloused flesh.

She gave a warm smile back, her cheeks crinkling the purple symbols on either side. "It's amazing you can do that," she admitted. "Though it's too bad your ankle wasn't healed in time. I'm surprised that your jinchūriki power wasn't able to do that."

I clicked my teeth together, shaking my head as I felt my mind go blank of excuses. "I-it was pretty bad," I quickly asserted, looking down at my ankle and giving it a tentative wiggle. It gave a yawn of pain in response.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, empathy marking her gaze before she gave a sheepish smile and folded her hands behind her back. "Well," she began, her tone becoming apologetically happy, "I just wanted to come out here and say welcome! I'm so happy you've decided to come with us!" She began bouncing on the balls of her feet before remembering herself and settling down. She made a wide motion with her arm and admitted, "I know the whole team should be here, and we would be normally, but Minato-san is still out scouting, and Obito-kun is with him.

"Anyway," she started giving a tiny giggle, "I think you've scared him too much about the yokai for him to be thinking of anything else right now. But when Minato-san told us, Obito-kun was thrilled and he went on and on about how excited he was to have a girl raised by wolves with us." She paused for a second before remembering to quickly tack on, "Oh, and Kakashi-kun was excited too! He's back but he's just uh-" A pause. "He's just on patrol!"

I was almost beginning to feel bad that she seemed so enthusiastic, but those feelings vanished when that last sentiment was spoken. I can only imagine how Grey Hair took the news with a grimace and a sharpening of his kunai. I frowned but thought, _At least I won't have to deal with him again even if everything else is terrible._

Rin-san noticed my expression and gave a small laugh as she hunched her shoulders demurely. "He has that effect on a lot of people," she conceded, "but he really has another side. He's really amazing once you get to know him."

I wrinkled my nose at that, sensing that there was something else in those words that I should've recognized, some other feeling. I gave a small bow and murmured, "Arigato, Rin-san. You're too generous even considering taking me in. I know it's an inconvenience." The words felt like vomit dribbling out of my mouth.

The girl's cheeks went pink as she brushed my words away. "No! No! Of course not. And please, don't be so formal. Please call me, Rin-chan."

The returning smile on my lips didn't feel all that forced as I motioned towards the house. "It smells like they're starting to make dinner. Shall we go inside, Rin-chan?"

She nodded eagerly and we began to walk towards the building. The kunoichi peered over at me and asked, "Ano, I don't mean to be rude, but can I ask you something about the kamigami?"

I gave a little nod.

"Minato-san told us that you all think the Tailed Beasts are kamigami," she explained, "and I just wanted to know why. I mean, it's kind of funny to imagine them that way. They're such terrible creatures. Especially the Nine Tails. At least from the stories anyway."

I cocked my head at her, wondering again at how lost the world had become. I shrugged and answered, "Some people already say they are chakra incarnate. That they have the power of the kamigami. I suppose us priests take that a bit more literally. But many priests debate how they came to be in this world. The consensus seems to be that they were creations of Izanami-sama and Izanagi-sama. As for being 'terrible', well-" I opened the door. "They're kamigami. They don't live by our human standards."

Rin-chan pursed her lips, obviously confused by the names, but then she gave a bright smile with a nod. "I guess that makes sense." She stepped into the house and turned to say, "I hope in our journey back you can tell me more of these stories. They're really interesting."

My smile widened, and for the briefest of fleeting moments, I regretted that we'd never become true friends. I hopped in after her only to be ambushed by Yori-senpai who wrapped me with another spine-cracking hug, his face still blotchy-red from earlier. "Ah!" he wailed half-jokingly. "I'm going to miss you miko-chan!" He pulled back and roughly ruffled my hair. "Who else will wake me at three in the morning with their howls? Azuumi-san?"

The old woman glared at him as she tasted the boiling soup but said a dignified nothing. Rin-chan laughed as she moved towards the stove, offering her help. Azuumi-senpai protested for a bit, but soon gave the task of vegetable chopping – one expertly handled by the kunoichi. I was assigned water duty, and I found myself traipsing in and out of the house with ice cold buckets from the well.

I didn't speak much as we prepared, and instead invested all my energy into soaking in everything around me. The sights, the scents, the sounds. I knew I wouldn't ever return to this place. So I embedded everything I could within me, burying them so they would remain with me for the rest of my life.

We heard Minato-san and Obito-kun return as we entered the last few minutes of preparation; they called out the usual greeting as I went outside for the last trip for water. When I turned back around, I saw Azuumi-senpai there, a little satchel in her hands. "Here," Azuumi-senpai explained as she traded for the bucket. "It's all the chocolate we had left hidden in the house. I thought you might need it."

I looked down at the bag, unable to say anything as my fingers shook beneath the treasure. The next thing I knew, Azuumi-senpai had knelt in front of me and dipped her forehead against mine. "You're strong," she whispered. "I know the road will be hard, but only someone like you will get through it." she took in a shuddering breath. "But try and stay safe for me. N-" She paused before finishing, "No one could ask for a better daughter."

I was still frozen by the time she had re-entered the house and was ushering everyone to their seats. I shoved the chocolate into a pant pocket and walked into the room, empty with shock. At the edge of my hearing, I heard Yori-senpai ask Azuumi-senpai, "Did she like the gift?"

I settled down blindly into a chair next to Rin-chan and across from an exhausted-looking Obito-kun and a pensive Kakashi-san. This time the latter held no book before him, but his fingers were tightly intertwined as he leaned his forehead against the bridge they made.

Yuuta-sama gave a little cough in his seat besides Minato-san, attracting everyone's attention. In a quavering voice, he spoke, but the funny thing was, I couldn't seem to hear him. I could see that he was speaking, I could see his lips forming the words, but my heart was just hammering too loudly. I watched his lips tremble as he looked to me, his green eyes sparkling like dew on moss. I could see the rest of the priests look to me as well, varying stages of pain on their faces. I could feel my cheeks become flecked with water, and as I swiped the drops away, I wondered if there was a leak in the ceiling which needed to be repaired. But I understood the gist of it. It had almost become too familiar now.

This was goodbye. This was goodbye for a long, long time.

I ducked my head, unable to meet their gazes as I fumbled with my cool prayer beads and begged for it to end. And like all things, it eventually did.

I looked up hesitantly to see that the others had begun their meals. I picked up my utensils and put on a façade of eating as well, shock still a dense thundercloud enveloping me. My skin was prickling with nervous electricity, and I couldn't help but struggle in balancing the clumps of rice in my chopsticks. It felt like all of their eyes were still on me, that everyone knew what I was about to do. I took care to avoid meeting Kakashi-san's eyes, for some reason feeling like if I did, he'd read my mind and stop me then and there. Probably with his sword to my throat.

But the dinner seemed to pass without note. The conversations were pattering on as the elders retold long-distant memories of our times together. Of when I had jumped off the roof into a snow pile and nearly broken my neck, of when I had hidden food in the fireplace only for the smell of cooked fish to fill the building for weeks, of when I had nearly set the building on fire. Of moments that seemed like misfortune in the past, moments I had taken as my deepest shame, but were now funny stories, beloved memories.

My stomach clenched, growling as it protested another gulp of food. I put my chopsticks down, thankful that the others had seemingly finished their own meals. I glanced around my fingers tangling the beads to a nearly irreparable state. Out of the corner of my eye, I peered at Akio-senpai, wondering if he had forgotten. _Or did he change his mind? _My breath hitched just as Azuumi-senpai appeared over my shoulder, her smile like crumpled paper as she placed a cup of simmering tea before me.

I thanked her, fumbling the words out as thoughts raced through my brain. _Or did I miss the sign? What did he mean by Ryuk? I read those books so long ago, did I forget something he did? How am I supposed to know when to leave? _I picked up the tea cup, my eyes flickering over to Akio-senpai once more. Just as I pressed the cup to my lips, I saw him lift his boiling cup as well only to place it back down on the table with the tiniest of clinks.

I blinked and put my own cup down without tasting it. _He never puts his cup down until he finishes his tea. Is this the sign? _I viciously gnawed at his action, trying to tear it apart as I attempted to hide my panic with a straight face. But my suspicions were only confirmed when the grizzled bear of a man jerked his chin slightly – ever so slightly – into the air.

My eyes widened as I turned back to my tea cup and sensed outwards. It was subtle, so subtle I could barely sense it. I was confused at first, sensing the subtle difference in Akio-senpai's essence. It felt like it was weaker, just subtly weaker but somehow – _It feels like there's two? _I frowned, unable to distinguish the patterns I was feeling very well; they were too close to each other, too alike for me to be certain. But I was certain this was my sign.

With exaggerated normalcy, I pushed back from my chair and excused myself to use the restroom. As I turned, my gaze traced over the table, searing that vision of that final domestic peace into my memory. Azuumi-senpai was smiling wanly at me, her eyes full and deep, and Yori-senpai was grinning goofily at me. Yuuta-sama watched me with those large green eyes, his smile warm as ever. Akio-senpai wasn't looking at me but was locked in conversation with Minato-san. The other Leaf shinobi were talking amongst themselves; at least, Rin-chan and Obito-san were. Kakashi-san was watching me leave, his eyes like black ice.

I turned my back on them and walked out the door, that strange energy from Akio-senpai growing stronger. As I turned the corner for the restroom, I saw its source and finally understood my senpai's hint. The character Ryuk was known in his world for somehow being everywhere at once. The trick was his mastery of ninjutsu which allowed him to create multiple flesh-and-blood doppelgangers, ones that had the exact same looks and abilities as the original.

_The Shadow Clone Technique, _I thought, my mouth dropping open. _That's a real thing? _

Akio-senpai stepped out of the shadows, his face tight and stern. I tried to sense if this was the original or a fake, but found the energies nearly identical. I stared at him, eyes wide, when he jerked his chin towards the door. He mouthed, "Leave now."

I frowned just as he began maneuvering his hands so quickly I couldn't follow the motions. He murmured a few words under his breath, so low I couldn't hear, and I could feel the threads of existence being rewoven, being tugged here and there, their energies shifting under the puppeteering of Akio-senpai. Then those threads was suddenly visible like a silent explosion of mist, and Akio-senpai disappeared behind the veil. When the mist disappeared, I faced an exact copy of myself, right down to the exact placement of tangled mats in my hair.

I blinked again my jaw dropping as a light squeak squiggled off my tongue. I watched my own eyes narrow in a piercing stare as my own chin jerked towards the door once more. "Go," the Fake Me hissed, the voice sounding oddly higher-pitched coming from another mouth. "I don't know how much time I can buy you."

Still dumbstruck, I slunk towards the door and opened it. I glanced back only to see that the Fake Me had disappeared back into the kitchen. I dipped my head and whisked out into the night on silent feet. The cold wind bit into my flesh, igniting the fire within me, dulling my pain, as I leapt into the underbrush. Without another glance at the temple, I cast my gaze towards the tangled pitch before me, towards my future that I had crafted, towards the fate that I had sealed.


	31. Chapter 31

Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heartbeat was thunder, drowning out the quick thud-thud-thud of my steps as I traced my way along old hunting trails, etching towards the pack's valley. My ankle was bending like a fresh sapling but was holding up for now. But my lack of fitness was evident as my breath was coming in hard, ragged: I hadn't truly run like this for many months, and I already felt exhaustion nipping at my heels.

I sprinted for the last place the mist-streaked wood had been. I knew my path should be as direct as possible but there was one obstacle: the den_. _I spat out a sticky glob of spit, feeling my heart split in two. _I would travel quicker with one of the pack_, I reasoned for an advantage to returning to the pack even for the briefest of moments. Yet that motive was negligible next to the true cause driving me: I couldn't leave my family without saying goodbye, making sure they were safe. _But-_

Again, I glanced behind me, my paranoia masked as survival instinct. If something was following me, I could neither see it, smell it, or sense it. The new moon afforded no light, the rains had cleansed the soil, and the forest – filled with life whose strings were matted and tangled in every possible manner – was too complicated for me to pick out anything. I was blind out here: if anything was trailing me, I hope they were too. But I had sensed no human since I had left the shrine.

_Take the chance, _I thought. _You're almost there._

I broke through the underbrush, the branches attempting their best to gouge through my reinforced clothing. I doubled over, wheezing in the clearing of tall grass, a small smile of accomplishment bulging my cheeks. I glanced around, wondering where everyone was when a chestnut blur suddenly filled my vision, crashing into me without mercy. I fell with a heavy 'oof', and both of us were sent spiraling from the force.

Completely winded, I was shaking as I tried to funnel the air into my collapsed lungs. I shook the hair out of my eyes and shoved away the long grass blocking my vision to spy Miyako, the pup, rolling around happily on her back. Proudly growling, she was just beginning to form coherent sentences, and the air was filled with, '_Sis! Sis! Come with food?'_

Shoving myself up on shaking arms, I glowered at her and let a growl rumble out of my throat. The pup immediately froze and righted herself, glancing over at me with her ears perked, her expression unrepentant and confused.

'_Miyako!' _The thin growl broke into a weak whine at the end. '_Get back here!' _

I turned to my brother – nearly invisible with his black coat in the dark – and saw him pawing at his eyes. I could just see the scars on his sparsely haired eyelids – a healed but gnarled mess. I sucked in a breath as I watched the wolf that would've been alpha.

'_Brother!' _I yelped, shoving myself to a run before I had fully gotten to my feet.

His ears perked and he sniffed the air hesitantly, placing his paw firmly on the ground. He lowered his head and ears, tucked his tail to his stomach. An ear twitched. '_Mira-chan? Is that you? What're you doing here? I thought you were Ka-san coming back with- What's wrong?'_

I raced over to him, glancing over to see Miyako outrunning me to where Teru-kun was. She tried to stop herself before she ran into our brother, but skidded in the dirt and tripped over her overly large feet and tumbled into the black mountain. She bounced off Teru-kun's bulk with a harmless thump, and even though he wasn't prepared for her assault, the wolf barely swayed. He bared his fangs at the pup, warning her away, and Miyako let out a snort. With a dismissive flick of her tail, she ran towards the other edge of the woods, running into the grey lump that must've been a sleeping Kotone who only responded with a lazy yawn.

I forced my gaze away, shoving the feelings of longing – the images of playing with them, teaching them the hunt, watching them take down their first deer – away with the rest of my memories. I turned to my brother and explained the whole situation with sharp yelps. My brother shifted to his feet, his fangs bared with growl truly worthy of his bulk.

The air quaked as Teru-kun's growl vibrated within my very bones. '_Why haven't we killed them already? Let's call the pack back in from patrols and go kill them now. We'll have the element of surprise.' _Blood began to drip from his eyes, following the grooves of his hackles as he took a step forward. '_A wolf should never have to run!'_

'_Our brothers and sisters should never have had to die!' _I gnashed my fangs. _ 'Brother! Get ahold of yourself! We're no match for them!' _I viciously slashed at his foreleg with all of my strength. '_I will _not_ have another death on my hands!'_

The wolf's ears twitched, his hackles rising for just a moment as he debated whether to rise to my challenge. I didn't back down, a snarl ripping out of my throat as I met my brother fang to fang.

Teru-kun paused for a moment, his ears flicking. With a sniff, he settled back on his haunches, his lips still curled, disgusted. '_So what should we do then, little flea?'_

I restrained my growl and muttered, '_What I said. I need to get to the Ancient Wood. I'll find my answers there, and I won't be followed. I can just hide there until all the shinobi leave. Where is Kizuato-san? He can take me. He may know where to go.'_

'_He's on patrol,' _Teru-kun answered, lifting his snout to the sky. '_They have tracked those other humans past the lake and are watching for them there. They aided that priest and those newcomers this morning.' _He let out a huff and swished his tail. '_I'll call him back.'_

He raised his muzzle to the moon, and I could see his chest expand with the icy air. But just before he could boom out the night's song, a small, low bark came from behind me. Teru-kun's ears twitched, and I turned thinking it had been one of the pups.

Instead, there were two creatures peering over the long grass at us. The larger one was about the size of Kotone and was just able to stare at us above the grass. The other was much smaller and was oddly perched on the larger one's head, its snub-nose wiggling towards us.

Miyako appeared beside me, her whiskers twitching, ears perked. She lifted a paw and tilted her head, whining her confusion.

'_A dog?' _I both answered her and questioned myself. I had read about them in books, seen pictures of them alongside their human companions. But I knew them best from the stories that Hana-san had told us when we were pups. All wolves knew the stories of the Great Betrayal – the time long ago when selfish, greedy wolf-kin turned their backs not only on their own packs but on Okami-sama herself. They deserted all pride to live off the scraps of humans. Their guilt was evident by the deformed appearances they had now taken: stunted, spotted creatures – their thin fur, their fangs small. The best example was that brown snub-nosed one strangely sitting atop its brother's head.

'_Dog?' _Kotone repeated with a slurred mumble, appearing out of nowhere to settle down beside me.

The forest spat out six more from its dark depths. Their shapes barely rose above the grass, their forms small, awkward in the great woods that surrounded us. Their fur was bright even on this dark night, and they seemed out of place, too small in this old forest. They seemed young too – as if they were in the throes of late adolescence: some hadn't even grown into their paws yet.

One of Teru-kun's heavy paws whipped past me, and I leapt away just in time to avoid being crushed by the other. I rolled to my feet, hackles raised to echo the growl ripping back my brother's lips.

_Dogs!_ Teru-kun snapped. _What are those traitors doing here? _Bristling, he stepped forward, coiling his muscles to blindly charge.

"Oy," the smaller dog spoke, lifting a paw. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He tilted his head and scratched himself, showing off the blue band circling his forehead. A blue band with a metal badge positioned right in the middle – a metal badge depicting the symbol of the Leaf.

"You can speak?" I gaped, eyes widening. I hadn't heard his from any of the stories, from anything I had read.

"And track," he barked.

"And kill," _he _said.

I blanched at that voice, freezing where I stood. There was only one person I knew who could speak in that callous tone. His form defined itself from the rest of the shadows as he leapt from the top boughs of the trees and landed silently in a crouch. He straightened up as his scowl settled low.

"Boss," the small dog welcomed. "We've tracked your target. Anything else?"


	32. Chapter 32

We were surrounded. The dogs had taken up offensive positions around us, cutting off any chance of escape. They weren't big – the largest of them barely reached past Teru-kun's knee – but I sensed that we were out-fanged here. If they had been simple dogs, I doubted they'd have been much of a threat to us, weak as we were. But I knew them for what they were. Ninken. I had read about in my books – dogs who had been trained in the art of the shinobi. While their fangs wouldn't be able to breach a wolf's coat, I didn't know what other tricks they knew.

_Especially with _him _on their side, _I considered, eyeing Grey Hair as he settled into a hunter's casual stance. He didn't even have that sabre of his ready. He just stood there, his arms crossed, an impatient glare aimed directly at me. _I can't take him by myself_.

I scowled right back, feigning confidence over all my fear. _If we just had an adult of the pack here, _I bemoaned._ If we had Kizuato-san or Tsume-san. We could take them easily. _

But we didn't. We just had a crippled Teru-lun and two pups that were still tripping over their own paws. A bitter taste filled my mouth. _I should've been smarter, _I snapped at myself. _What have I done? I brought everyone into danger. Again._

I smashed my teeth together, emitting a light 'click' as a piece of a baby molar chipped off. The useless fragment of bone sat on my tongue, helpless, hapless. I gritted my jaw, feeling the shard scrabble harmlessly against the roof of my mouth. It had lost its place in the world. It had been cast out.

I spat it onto the ground and stepped back, brushing against Teru-kun's leg. I rested my hand on his black fur, trying to tell him what neither of us wanted to admit. We stood no chance. We couldn't risk even beginning this fight. _No. Not with the pups here. _

Still meeting glare with glare, I eyed the pups out of the edges of my vision. Kotone had settled comfortably on her haunches and was merely peering back at the strangers, barely ruffled. Miyako on the other hand was on her toes, as tense as a sprout in a gale. There was spittle dangling out the corner of her mouth, the excitement getting to her. I nudged my brother and he gave a soft growl and plopped his huge leg in front of her, blocking her vision.

The nauseous feeling grew, and my stomach involuntarily clenched, stabbing my abdomen with pain. '_The dogs are ninken,' _I muttered to Teru-kun. '_They know how to coordinate their attacks and probably some jutsu as well. And with _him_ here, it won't even be close to a fair fight.'_

'_Give up already!' _one of the newcomer dogs barked at us. '_It'll be easier for you.' _His accent was a debased, tinny sound – the opposite of Kizuato-san's humbling boom. The noise reflected an almost weasel-like aura about him with that mottled gray and white fur, that abnormal tuft of black hair sprouting out between his ears.

'_Figures you traitors would work with them!' _Teru-kun gnashed, facing a tree five feet away from where the mutt actually was. '_Betraying your own kind wasn't enough?' _He snapped his open maw, spittle flying. '_Okami-sama should've killed you all when you chose humans over pack.'_

The dogs began to bark and yip back, shouting insults and jeers as they started to shift around us, pacing past one another but keeping well away. One shouted, '_Then what's that thing at your side? Eh, blackie?'_

'_Don't blame him!' _another answered. '_Filthy wolf probably just thinks the girl's a tick!'_

'_Wolves! As blind as ever!'_

A chorus of snickering yips erupted into the night as Teru-kun's head whipped around, his growl so low as if it was bubbling from the earth. A higher whine, no less ferocious screeched out between Miyako's fangs as she leapt out from behind Teru-kun's paw and took a tiny step forward. I felt something brush against my right shoulder, and I turned to see that Kotone had risen to her feet and stood stolidly at my side, her eyes searing flames. She had grown fast and her bulk was rippling with sinew below.

Kakashi-san furrowed his brow as he gazed at the dogs under his command. "Oy!" he snapped, raising his hand. At his signal, they all ceased barking and froze. The smallest, snub-nosed dog who had remained silent shook his head and rubbed his snout with a paw. He muttered something I couldn't make out, but Grey Hair gave a sharp nod, his disapproval dissipating.

The shinobi turned his dark eyes back onto me and resettled in his stance, crossing his arms over his chest.

"The intimidation over?" I snapped at him, straightening.

Kakashi-san held tilted his head. I couldn't see it beneath that mask, but I could feel the smear of his smirk. My skin began crawling, and I had to suppress a shudder.

"To be honest," Grey Hair began, "I'm a bit disappointed that this was where you were heading." He looked around, taking in the shattered peace of the meadow, then turned back to me. "Well, at least that this is where we had to stop you." He straightened up and raised a palm, fingers relaxed. "For someone who is so sensitive to their surroundings, I'd thought you'd notice you were being tailed. But your range isn't very far and you're not very sharp. You can only focus on one thing at a time, and nothing else." He lowered his palm back and raised a brow. "But you didn't even suspect we were following you? Not one single time since we came to the temple?"

I raised my chin, letting out a huff, attempting to fake some sense of superiority as I internally drowned in my idiocy. _It must've been one of the dogs when I was speaking with Akio-senpai! They must have heard us! Baka! Baka! I shouldn't have been looking just for the shinobi!_ Lips trembling, I managed to stutter out, "W-well, I didn't think I needed to. We were supposed to be a-allies!"

"Take a step further, and we won't be." The shinobi shifted his weight, moving to the liminal state between attack and defense. He gave one long look at me, as if confirming something, and then fell back on his heels. He jerked his chin at me, and slowly turned and took a step towards the forest. His message was plain: _Come. It's not like you can do anything else. _

Hatred flared, my hands curled into fists. I took a step forward, anger blinding me for just a moment. "So that's _it_?" I shrieked at him. "You think I'm just going to go back?"

He turned his head, looking at me from beneath a shock of ashen hair, his eyes sharp, glinting like the metal braces along his arms. "Yes," he said, voice steady, steely, deep – too deep for someone his age.

I curled my lip, a derisive sneer brandishing my face as panic bubbled out of me. "Did you think I'm that stupid? Just because I haven't left this forest?" My snarl rose to a shriek, "I know why you want me to go with you! You've seen what I can do! You've made it clear you don't want the Mist to get me! You don't want me becoming their puppet, huh? Don't want me becoming their weapon?" I spat in his direction, the spittle landing pathetically close. "Well who's to say that the Leaf doesn't want me for those exact same reasons? To use me for this war you shinobi created?"

I wrapped my arms around my chest, crunching the ribs below. Rage seared my sinew, igniting the quaking in my legs, the aching in my jaw. I had to force teeth apart to click the words out, "And if you don't use me, well I suppose you'll just hold me prisoner and keep me from leaving ever again! Keep me from coming home to the temple! Keep me from my family!"

He had squared his shoulders to me again. Though he tried to hide it, I could see him lower his stance, his fingers creep slowly towards his sabre. He spoke his words slowly, his demeanor ever distant, ever glacial. "If you come back now," he stated with a grating attempt of soothing, "things will be a lot easier for everyone." His gaze flashed towards his own dogs and then to my wolves. "Minato-san and I know what you've done," he continued, failing to mollify me, "but no one else. Noboru's clone was convincing, but he's gotten dull in his old age. It seems that neither of you were able to recognize mine at the dinner table."

_He used the Shadow Clone Jutsu as well, _I gaped, that degrading sense of idiocy deepening. _Can everyone just do this? Or is he really a prodigy? _The panic deepened. I took a step back, viciously shaking my head so that my hair slapped against my cheeks. "No! No! Why should I trust you? Any of you! All you shinobi have done is hurt me! Hurt my family!"

The shinobi froze then, his pupils tightening, flashing like onyx. "I think you're confusing us for the real enemy." He straightened up, his hands dropping to his sides. He raised a calloused palm up to me. With the other arm, he slowly lifted a hand to the edge of his shoulder, grasping something I had been completely oblivious too. I cursed myself, damning that I had become so soft at the temple for not noticing what could easily be a weapon. He drew the object forth from whatever holster that cradled it and held it out to me.

"Here," he uttered – the truce he was offering burning his tongue. "Take it."

The thing that was barely outlined in the black of night. I looked at it, confused at the uneven edges of the thing until I realized its fine lines were coated with thick, black mud. Then its form became clear. It straight lines that ended with a slight bulb at the top – a bulb where two wooden ears and a snout poked through a sheen of muck. The mud had been wiped away there. And I could just make out that familiar face staring back at me. That face I would never forget.

_Utau-kun. _The name dropped into the center of my mind – a single stone whose wake cancelled out the roiling froth of the ocean. Suddenly, those depths erupted with images which turned the froth crimson. Fire and smoke choked my lungs once more as the town flickered before me. Pain and confusion echoed within me as my brother's face came into view, his maw already bloody, but his eyes – his _eyes _– when they rested on me, they grew soft with calm. That's when the smoke took him as he darted off to save the others, vanishing into my memories forever.

Then I could hear – actually _hear _– Ashi-chan's snarls and yelps. I could see her running alongside Kizuato-san and I as I fought against the encroaching darkness. I could see her grimace and snap, the pain of the small cut lining her snout just beginning to bother her. The cut that seemed so small and simple. One that should've healed within a few days. One that had ensured her a death so painful her screeches had echoed throughout the valley and even into my feverous nightmares.

The only survivors stood at my side now: Teru-kun and the last pups of the litter. If I acted now, I would kill them. Suddenly, the images of Miyako and Kotone mauled bloody and strewn across the plain filled my vision. _And Teru-kun. H-he ha-_

Ice enveloped me, nausea built within me. I began to grow dizzy, but I tightened my grip in Teru-kun's fur and propped myself up. Something wet hit my cheeks and I looked up, thinking it had started raining again. Realizing the truth, I quickly swiped the tears away, reminding myself, _Wolves do not cry. Wolves do not show fear._

"Noboru told us about this cane when we found it on patrol. Why he made it," Kakashi-san uttered, his words shearing away at me. "So don't blame the Leaf for your mistakes."

I looked up and stared at him. Stared and met his cold, acrid gaze. I stared and saw him for what he was, saw him for what he had become. And I knew that if I went with him, with him and the other shinobi, there was a chance that I'd become the same. That same empty husk of a person. _But if I stay_, I thought, _I'll become something much worse. _Something lower than human, baser than animal, more vile than Death.

_I'll become the reason everyone I loved was slaughtered._

I knew what my answer was then. It was the only option I could bear living with. My breath fell out of me, a cold, dead thing before it even passed my lips. My hands fell to my sides as I felt my soul grow limp, my life suddenly a cage that kept me within this nightmare.

_Mira_? Teru-kun growled, gently leaning into my side.

I didn't reply. Instead, I let my hand drop from his fur, and I took a step forward. "All right," I whispered. Or tried to. The words caught in my throat – some last hint of pride refusing to allow me to utter them, to allow me to truly give up.

I looked at the shinobi and imagined I saw a flicker of something else there. Something other than that icy disdain, something other than that searing bloodthirst. Something like-

_Disappointment?_

Victorious without even a drop of blood, Kakashi-san let out a breath and lifted the cane, intending to holster it. It was clear what he was doing. To a trained eye, it was obvious he meant no threat. To a trained eye, it was obvious he had won. But as he enclosed the cane, his gear shifted and the metal point of a weapon glinted into view.

That was what triggered her. That glimpse of a blade's edge. Untrained and reckless, Miyako sprinted forward, a howl of rage quivering out of her tiny lungs. She thought that the shinobi had declared war. She had no idea that she was the one who launched it.


	33. Chapter 33

"No!" I shrieked, lunging forward, hand outstretched, fingers slipping through Miyako's gossamer, tawny fur. My fist clenched on empty air as my sister charged, fangs gnashing, eyes flaming. The ninken were already shifting to intercept her: the dog with the sandy coat, whose snout and underbelly were as white as its bared fangs, sprinted forward to accept her challenge.

I heard the crunch of their bodies as they smashed together, heard the snarls and the clashing of fangs. I heard all of this, but I couldn't see it: just as the two canines clashed, my legs had been kicked out from under me. The air exploded out of my lungs as I toppled to the dirt, the rocks snapping at my skin.

Gasping, I dug my elbows into the soil, just barely lifting myself up before another force slammed into my spine, crushing me back down. My ribs quivered from impact, and I struggled to squeeze air into my collapsed lungs. I coughed pathetically, unable to regain my breath as that crushing weight built on top of me, driving me into the soil. All that pressure suddenly coalesced, forming something akin to a blade driving deep into my back. Pain exploded from the point, the pressure digging beneath layers of fat and muscle to gouge into my left kidney. I thrashed, desperately trying to dislodge my assailant or at least redirect the pressure just as true cold, heartless steel kissed the back of my neck.

I bristled, every fiber within me quaking as my suspicions were confirmed. Unable to turn my head, I could barely see him through my russet matte of hair. All I could make out was the sight of the black-clothed knee that was eagerly digging into my side. I couldn't see the shinobi's face but I could easily imagine that steely, almost bored, gaze, as he adjusted his weight to allow a sharpening of the pressure into my kidney.

Gritting my teeth, I crunched my eyes shut, trying to focus past the pain, trying to unwind the fabric of existence to lock onto the musubi that created the shinobi's very essence. If I could just manage it, I could end this – end _him_ – once and for all.

As if sensing my thoughts, Grey Hair tightened his grip on the blade so it nipped at my skin. "Don't even-"

He didn't get to finish his threat. His form was overtaken by an explosion of grey. I rolled onto my right hip, gasping fresh air into my lungs as I gripped my left side. I looked up to see Kotone rolling with the shinobi who was viciously punching her snout. My sister whimpered but tightened her grip on his left arm, her teeth crunching the metal of his arm guard as she gave a savage shake.

"Kotone!" I shrieked, gathering my feet. "Let go! Run!"

I took a step forward only for fangs to bite deeply into my calf, puncturing through skin into the muscle. I yelped and twisted on my heel, savagely lashing out at the face of my attacker – the largest of the ninken. The creature barely flinched at my retort, and savagely jerked its head, knocking me down on to my back. I raised my hands, ready to tear out the beast's eye, only for that small brown pug to leap out of nowhere and latch onto my left wrist, pinning it to the floor.

"You're not making any seals," it spat through a full mouth.

Snarling, I lashed at it with my free hand, but the pug nimbly dodged my strike yet had to sacrifice its grip. Gaining the freedom of my hand, I jerked my chest upwards only to be viciously twisted by the larger, bull-like dog. My hips popped and rattled as I was flipped back onto my stomach. My nose and mouth filled with soil as I was yanked backwards, the dog hauling me through the dirt and grass like some sort of plaything.

Sputtering, I dug at the earth, desperately trying to anchor myself. Through the grass, I could just catch flashes of Kotone and the shinobi – their flurry of movement almost looking like a dance. The shinobi feinted left, pivoting just as Kotone leapt. Changing his entire momentum, Grey Hair shoved off his right foot, dodging the foaming fangs to land a heavy blow to the back of her skull with the handle of his stunted blade. Kotone yelped, fumbling her landing, disoriented by the pain. The shinobi twisted on his heel, his sabre raised, its tip pointed at my sister's back.

"No!" I shrieked.

Hearing my cry, Teru-kun suddenly leapt towards us, spittle frothing. His seven-inch fangs clashed together, a foot away from skewering my thigh yet just managing to clip the dog dragging me. The latter leapt away baying and stumbling over its right paw, its shoulder unbloodied yet undoubtedly damaged by the sheer force of impact.

Free, I only had a second to leap away before the earth exploded where my head had just been. I dove again, dodging another of my brother's huge paws as he swung wildly around, blindly gnashing his fangs and snarling. I glanced back to see that my brother was trying to catch one of the four ninken that were launching themselves at him, vainly trying to sink their fangs through his thick coat.

The tiny pug was leading the charge, deftly running between my brother's paws like some sort of hare, barking out, "Keep him distracted!" He glanced in my direction and seeing me upright snarled, "Shiba-kun!"

Gasping and clutching my ribs, I ducked again as Teru-kun's black tail came whistling by, nearly crushing my skull. But within the movement's shadow, the mohawked dog used that tail's momentum as a launching pad to barrel into me. His fangs dug into my right shoulder, and I yelped as its weight yanked me to the floor. It began to scrabble at my stomach with its sharpened claws.

Memories flashed of Ashi-chan pinning me down in this exact same way back when we were pups. But these weren't her happy eyes, her playful nips. This was real. This was what our games had trained us for. I craned my neck and bit savagely down on the ninken's ear, its salty blood exploding into my mouth. I hooked my left hand around and slashed at his face, my nails managing to catch his gooey eye.

Baying, the dog, leapt away, its right eye an angry red that flashed between the series of wet blinks. It raised its hackles at me, its aura darkening as he began to circle me. I padded along with it, a grin growing wider on my lips as I managed to snake my way around the strings of his essence. I bared my fangs, victorious and gave a-

Something ripped through my arm, tearing through flesh as I jumped back. I couldn't even register the damage before another kunai darted for me, forcing me to leap away again. Sensing a change in plans, the dog darted away from me, taking his chance to recover.

Furious and clutching my bleeding arm, I glanced back to see that Grey Hair had taken his eyes off Kotone for just that one moment. My little sister saw her opening and launched herself at the human, digging her fangs into his neck. My elation was cut off my sister's muzzle suddenly became shrouded in smoke, and I felt the universe's strings thrumming from manipulation. When the smoke cleared, I jolted to see that shinobi's body had been replaced with a branch.

Kotone spat it out, howling with rage when the shinobi abruptly appeared behind her in another burst of smoke. Grey Hair leapt forward, his hands wrestling themselves into a series of signs too quick to follow, but I could feel the universal threads coiling around him.

Without hesitation, I lashed out, swiping at the torrent of energy he was building, not comprehending my mistake until it was too late. The energy the shinobi had been molding exploded into me, through me, within me. Knocked backwards, my back smashed into a trunk. I crumpled to its base, ears ringing and eyesight dim.

_Lightning? _I blinked and shook my head, staggering to my feet as I kept a hand on the bark behind me. I looked down at myself, my clothing untouched, but my skin raw and beginning to blister. My chest felt like it was on fire, and I looked down to see the prayer beads lividly white, vibrating with the torrent of power.

Dazed, the pain still hadn't registered yet. With smeared vision, I could only make out my brother's blurry outline a couple of yards away. I blinked again, and he came into clearer focus, and I could see that he was still gnashing at the dogs racing around him. Off in the distance, I could see another grey figure moving, snarling, fighting – alive.

_Kotone, _the thought slurred into focus alongside relief. I took a step in her direction when I heard a whimper to my right. I immediately staggered in that direction, recognizing that sound anywhere. For once, I was relieved. Miyako stood there, bristling, seemingly untouched except for a few matted clumps of fur and dirt. Joyous, I tried to bark, '_Miyako!' _but could only manage a weak cough.

My sister's ears flicked, acknowledging my presence, but her blazing eyes were transfixed. '_Not fair!'_ she snarled towards the other end of the grove where the sandy dog stood uninjured as well. My sister bared her fangs and ordered, '_Fight! Fight!'_

I blinked, confused but was unable to process that information when another kunai came flying between us. I stumbled back as my sister was already charging forward to meet the dog again. Unsteadily, I pivoted on my heel, to see a black and silver blur running straight for me.

_Grey Hair_, I realized as he let another series of fuzzy things – what must be kunai or shuriken – fly. I flung myself to the left, tripping, but managed to roll to my feet. I snapped my canines into my cheek, the sharp pain setting my adrenaline flooding and sparking my senses to a semblance of what they were before. But the world was still so cold, so dark: the beads began to snap at my skin, ensuring I couldn't reach out to the fabric once more.

I turned to face the shinobi head on. He had pulled his sabre out now and was lazily swirling it in those trained, deft hands. The blade emitted streaks of light – escapees of a rampaging brawl between electric strands somehow channeled effortlessly by the shinobi.

Gritting my teeth, I tried to reach out to the strings again but ended up clawing against a wall, a vast gulf of emptiness. The beads began to quake upon my chest once more, so hot they were searing the fabric of my hakama, so white they were nearly glowing. The beads that had protected me since that night of disaster now left me weaponless. Defenseless.

I kept my senses wide, my attention on every angle of his body to try and predict what he'd do. _It's just like hunting, _I told myself. _Just wait for the moment. Just wait. _I drowned the voices saying my blurry vision couldn't wouldn't be able to track him. That I couldn't even match his speed, match his strength. I ignored them, stared at the shinobi before me, and began to count. _6\. 5. 4-_

My knees buckled as they were kicked out from behind. I fell forward as the white blade slid past my view to furtively nestle against my throat. Instinct and desperation had me scrabbling at the arm. But it didn't budge and my bloody nails left no mark on the scratched and dented armor.

Confused and enraged, I saw the shinobi still in front of me stop twirling his blade, cock his head at me – probably smirking under that mask – and disappear into burst of mist. And then I merely had to think back to the books to realize Grey Hair had probably just used another Clone technique.

And I had been stupid enough to fall for it.

My hands fell to my sides as I went limp from the core outwards. I whipped my gaze around, seeing Teru-kun tear wildly at the dogs that raced along his huge form. I could see Kotone facing off against two other dogs, snarling and gnashing her fangs, a trickle of blood dripping from a shallow cut along her snout. Miyako was still facing her own brute who merely rebuffed every one of her attacks with too much ease: it was just toying with her.

I started feeling the pain then. How the air rubbed like sandpaper against my raw, glistening skin. How my ankle throbbed, just at the edge of shattering once more. How my heart ached, knowing what was to come.

But for some reason, Grey Hair was stalling the killing stroke. Keeping the metal edge even on my pulsing artery, he gave a sharp whistle and suddenly all the dogs darted from their opponents, reforming the ring around us. My family stood panting in the center, glancing from one dog to the next but grateful for the reprieve as they huddled together in the center.

I could see Kotone and Miyako look towards me, their noses snuffling as they began to whine. Teru-kun's ears flicked as his snout darted around as he tried to find my scent. The air began to tremble once more with his growl, but the bass note broke to a crackling whine as his head lowered, his tail falling.

I closed my eyes, unable to stomach the scene. _At least none of them are hurt badly._

"What is this?" the shinobi spoke, his words clipped in a tone not of anger, but efficiency.

I opened and shut my mouth a few times before managing, "Wh-what?"

"This necklace," he specified, jerking the blade so that its tip lifted the beads into my view while an edge still firmly held its position against my throat. "What is it? Why is it white now? Is it something to control your chakra? To contain the Tailed Beast?"

"Baka," I spat at him through gritted teeth, words the only weapon I had left. "Don't you get it? There is no Tailed Beast!"

He made a noise in the back of his throat, a dismissive note of disgust. I could feel the weapon dig into my throat. I lowered my head, believing this moment to be my last. Believing my life had been a failure.

Instead, he ordered, "Get to your feet. We're going back now. Tell your wolves to stay here, otherwise I'll tell the ninken not to hold back anymore."

My eyes opened, my brow furrowing as I slowly registered the last of what he had said. _They took it easy on us? _My gut roiled in strange mixture of self-loathing and gratitude as I looked to my pack, thinking that this would be the last time I would see them.

But none of them were looking at me. I frowned just as the smallest dog shouted, "Behind you!"

I was suddenly thrown to one side. A line of searing pressure cut a line across my throat and the thought came, _He slit my throat?! _But then the pressure broke, and the intangible wall around me collapsed.

I fell to the dirt just a clap of thunder split the air where Grey Hair and I had just been. An inhuman shriek of pure rage and hatred shattered meadow, sending birds flocking to the sky, echoing across the mountains in the distance. Blood dripping, her fangs clenched in the air just where the shinobi's head had been, Hana-san stood, her fur drenched in blood from the hunt. Slowly, she turned her head, her eyes landing on every single dog before resting on the shinobi. Her message was clear: they were all going to die.

I should've been overjoyed at this. With an adult here, we had gained the advantage. We were saved. I should've been howling with the rest of my brothers and sisters. But the elation was buried beneath so much else.

So much was racing through me then. I could feel It. Everything, I mean. Could feel the beating of each creature's heart. The wolves, the dogs, us humans. Even the trees and blades of grasses. I could feel all of their souls. Feel all that which made their souls. Those threads. It was as plain to me as the prayer beads, severed by the sabre's edge, lying uselessly in the dirt just at my side. Free of my fetters, the universe opened before me, welcoming me back with its omnipotent embrace.

But this time it was so much _more._

Yet that realization wasn't sovereign in my mind. That realization isn't what made me clench the dirt with quaking hands. That realization didn't cause the single tear to tickle my cheek. Any other time it would have. But for right now, all I could think was, _I can feel it! I can feel the Ancient Wood!_


	34. Chapter 34

I exhaled, the warm breath gently kissing my lips as it rushed out. I inhaled, the cold air clawing my lips as it was dragged in. That was all I could do for a moment, all I could manage physically. I tried to return to myself, to define the edges of my body in the wash of musubi, but I was wandering, lost in this bath of light.

_Focus_, I told myself, finding a center in my heartbeat. _Focus. _

Ba-bump. I breathed out. Ba-bump. I breathed in. Ba-bump. Out. Ba-bump. In.

I opened my eyes, the world in front of me blurred between the two realities. I could make out their shapes, their movements, but their flesh and fur wavered between corporeal – the physical – and musubi – the insubstantial.

My lips parted as I saw the only thing that appeared untouched, retaining its simple form: the prayer beads. My former guardian, that which had kept me safe from both destruction and self-destruction, helping me keep control ever since the night of the Kagura: all the while, its restrictions had strengthened and honed my abilities like a set of weights. There it was, now lying in the dirt, its plain wood speckled with glowing bits of soil. My salvation and damnation had been torn away from me, leaving me unfettered, my strength prematurely unbound.

I breathed out, and the threads quivered around me at even that simple action – the wind rising at a call I hadn't meant to make. Steadying myself as best I could, I rose on unsteady feet, hunched over as I faltered on my punctured calf and clutched at my injured shoulder. The wind whipped around me, eagerly nibbling at my skin, glowing like some sort of golden veil. It shimmered with other bits, dotted with even brighter stars. As I looked closer, I realized that those stars were actually bits of dirt, floating unnaturally around me.

'_Stop!' _I commanded both them and myself, but the wind only picked up, the dirt began to dart around like meteors. The grass at my side began to sway and twist, winding itself around and up my legs. I took a step back, yanking away from their grips.

I should've been panicked then. I should've been desperately clawing for the beads and wrapping them around my neck. I should've known that, for the first time since the night of Kagura, I was out of control.

But all that I could think, all that I could consider, was the steady thrumming of those universal strings, the steady pull to that other realm. It was calling me, beckoning me. The Ancient Wood. With almost inhuman joy, I felt my very spirit moving to answer its call. _Ka-san must be there, _I thought, I hoped, I doubted.

'_Mira!' _My attention snapped towards Hana-san whose shimmering form was bristling to my right, her fangs an incandescent beacon in the night. Her gaze was boring into the enemies before her, her breath coming out in rumbles of rage. '_This is the plan!' _she hissed.

I gaped, distracted by how the sounds themselves seemed to swirl from her maw, along the threads which comprised the air. I was so captivated that I couldn't even understand the jumble of orders which came next.

'_Focus!' _Teru-kun snapped, his teeth clashing an inch away from my ear. '_Get ready!'_

I shook my head – at least, what I thought comprised my head – and saw that the pack had formed a defensive circle to match the ninken's outer one. I managed to gather myself enough to stare at the opponent across from me: the shinobi. An echo of satisfaction blossomed within me as I saw that his eyes were wide as he assessed me.

I gave him a small, heartless smile as we stared at each other: priestess and shinobi, daughter of kami and son of man. He only hardened his grip around the blade primed in his hands.

"They're going to make a break for it, boss," the little dog said, hopping up onto the larger dog again. "They're going to try to lose us in the woods and meet up with the rest of the pack."

Hana-san, taken aback that the dog had understood her, viciously snarled, '_You stunted, little inbred traitor! I'll shatter your skull with one snap!'_

The dog only gave a small yawn in reply.

Just as she was about to say something else, Teru-kun lashed his tail and flared, '_We're running away? Let's disembowel them _now_!'_

She snapped her fangs at him, rebuking his insubordination, her hot breath forming dew drops of spittle along his whiskers. '_They want _Mira_,' _she snarled. '_We'll lead them away from you and the pups!' _She whipped her snout at me. '_Now get ready to grab on!'_

I blinked but managed to get a good enough grip on reality to command my muscles to nod.

"Don't listen to the Tailed Beast," Grey Hair commanded me, his voice hard, yet even. I looked up at him as he continued, "You're already losing control. Look how you can't even stand."

His words didn't faze me as my weight shifted unsteadily from foot to foot, heel to toe, seemingly of its own accord. The wind gusted viciously for a moment around us, whipping the meadow's flora into a frenzy, before dying down once more to steady jostling.

I could see Hana-san eyeing me again, and I knew without words her command. I centered myself again, ignoring the lesson I had been taught so many times before, trying to focus on the rhythmic beating beneath my chest.

I heard Grey Hair shout "San [Scatter]!" as I told myself, _Just a tap. Nothing more. Just_ tap_ the strings. Just give us some cover so we can escape. _I reached out and gently brushed a single string.

It shattered beneath my touch. The musubi was still for a single moment, as if in the same shock that I was. But suddenly the surrounding threads began to quake, filling the void I had created, erupting the physical realm into chaos. The very earth cracked and splintered. The wind slapped at my skin, using the bits of twigs and stones it carried to draw blood. I heard anguished yelps and whimpers as the maelstrom flung me backwards and slammed my back into what felt like a furred wall.

Air burst out of my lungs as I looked up through the screaming winds to see Hana-san struggling to her feet at the other end of the glade. The pups were at her side, rolling over one another, their weight not able to anchor them to the floor. The shinobi and the ninken had steeled themselves by latching onto the branches of the trees whose ancient trunks were barely troubled by the sudden gale, the sudden seizing of the earth.

I gnashed my teeth together, cursing myself with the darkest language I knew. But then I heard Teru-kun shout, '_Mira!' _I glanced behind me to realize that the wall had been my brother's muscled side. Even with his unmatched weight, he was struggling to keep his footing as he hunkered low against the blast of wind. His amber eyes were upon me, and I needed no further instruction.

After weaving, stumbling, clawing and falling, I managed to scramble up his shoulder and dove to wrap my arms around his neck, my fists around his fur. '_Go!' _I barked.

My brother launched himself to a flat-out sprint, using the windstorm as a boost. He raced straight into the underbrush, barely slowed by thicket's thorns and brambles. Peeking my head over his, I saw that he was barreling straight towards a fat trunk of bark.

'_Left!' _I yelped, and my brother pivoted on his hind legs, twisting his whole momentum as agile as a deer. But the reward to his skill was a bit dampened as he instead ran straight through a spiny bush. My brother muscled his weight through it, and, protected by Teru-kun's fur, I managed to only get a few scrapes along my arms, shins, and back before he broke free and continued racing forward.

'_Come on, Mira!' _Teru-kun snapped, his muscles writhing beneath me.

I strained my grip in his fur, finding the rhythm in his stride grounding me as a maelstrom of musubi raced past us as if we weren't the ones moving at all. Somehow, I managed to gather myself enough to direct, '_Right! Left! Right! I said _right_!' _

My brother narrowly avoided barreling head-first into a boulder but glanced his shoulder on its side. I squeezed my thighs to keep my seating as he stumbled forward. He quickly regained his stride, and suddenly we burst into a clearing. Sensing the open air, Teru-kun pounded forward at his full, unhindered speed.

I blinked, the air screaming past my face, snipping at my eyes to draw tears. Behind all of that, I found myself struggling to separate the two realities that were still jumbled my senses. I saw something – _many _somethings – ahead of us, but I couldn't make them out. Not at this distance. Teru-kun charged forward, tendons churning beneath me as he bounded forward. As we grew closer, my vision cleared enough so that I could finally distinguish those shapes, and my stomach dropped to somewhere in my ankles.

'_Shika [Deer]!' _I shrieked, tugging left on my brother's fur. '_It's a herd!' _

'_What?' _he yipped, skidding but slipping on loose soil. We rolled over together, and I felt my knee pop as his shoulder blade dug into it.

He straightened up as I gasped and clutched at my leg, looking up just in time to catch beads of light dancing in the boughs from which we had just burst. I didn't need more time to recognize them for what they were. I was becoming particularly familiar with Grey Hair's essence.

'_Get up!' _I barked at him. '_They're right behind us!' _

My brother's ears perked as he rolled to his feet before the gathering of deer. The huge stags in front of us turned at the noise and, seeing a huge wolf, began to rear on their legs and bay into the night. The does and their fawns fled as the stags formed a wall in front of us, lowering their antlers and brandishing them at us.

Teru-kun began to snarl and bark, trying to intimidate the males which towered above us, their antlers as deadly as kunai. None of the stags fell back from my brother's blustering: they sensed correctly that he was alone. The largest of them lunged forward, nearly gutting my brother if he hadn't sensed it and leapt away in time. Teru-kun stumbled at the landing, tripping over a stone he hadn't seen and another charged forward at the opportunity.

"No!" I screamed, scrambling for the threads.

But then a huge wall of earth sprang up between us. I heard the stag baying in surprise behind it as my brother scrambled to his feet, praising me. But I knew it couldn't have been me. I glanced back just in time to see Grey Hair kneeling on the floor, his hands gripping the earth. I could see the musubi flowing from him to the wall in front of us, could see how when he released the earth, the barricade crumpled as well. And when the barrier fell, I could see the set of writhing hooves just behind it.

'_Look out!' _I shouted, grabbing onto Teru-kun's fur. My brother darted forward, passing beneath the belly of the stag and just barely missing the hooves that came crashing down behind us. He crashed into the creature's back legs, sending both of them sprawling and inciting panic in the herd.

As my brother regained his feet and I shook the ringing out of my skull, I looked around at the stampede we had triggered. I glanced behind to see the ninken darting towards us, but before I could shout, my brother had already smelled them and had taken off. Gaining his stride, he sprinted forward, blindness or brilliance leading him directly into the path of rampaging hooves where the ninken shouldn't be able to follow.

'_Right!' _I directed, tugging his fur in the direction of my commands. '_Duck! Left! Left! Right! Jump! _Jump_!'_

My brother soared over an elk who had tripped and fallen, its legs kicking into the air but just missing crushing my brother's ribs. As his paws hit the earth, we reached the end of the glade and tore through the underbrush, protected by the forest once more as the herd veered away from us.

I tightened my grip on my brother's fur as I felt a pressure beginning to build in my skull, a sudden wooziness sending my thoughts swimming in my consciousness. I took a moment to drag a deep breath into my lungs, glancing down to see red droplets – glistening golden with musubi – falling onto my brother's fur. I realized then that my chin was drenched with blood pouring freely from my nose, but I lifted no hand to wipe it away. I couldn't sacrifice my grip. I just looked up and continued to direct my brother past the flow of obstacles in our path.

Between orders, I glanced behind us back into the underbrush and up at the trees, watching the shinobi and the ninken slowly lose ground to us. Even if we were crashing nearly into everything, Teru-kun's speed was unrivaled, especially in these woods whose dense growth held back smaller creatures. Still, they were managing to keep up almost too well: if we lessened our pace at all, they'd catch up to us.

I quaked as my brother's voice rumbled through his ribs, up my legs, and set my teeth clattering.

'_I hear Kizuato-san!' _my brother gasped through an open maw, his tongue bouncing in the wind. Joy and excitement – emotions I never thought to see from him again – flickered in his tone. For once, he seemed like his old self. He altered his course towards the right. '_The pack is sending out the signal to attack! Ka-san must've alerted them!'_

I strained my own weaker ears, but couldn't hear our alpha past the constant cracking and snapping of twigs and leaves as Teru-kun powered through the underbrush. I glanced back and saw the shinobi hold his hand next to his ear, muttering something into some sort of device, but then his visage was blocked from me by a tangle of leaves.

I kept my senses trained on his essence, but felt him fall further and further back. Drawing myself upward, I leaned up next to Teru-kun's ear and ordered, '_Go left!' _

He changed direction, thinking he just needed to avoid some obstacle.

'_No!' _I ordered. '_Go _left_!' _I tugged sharply on his fur.

'_What?' _he snapped, suddenly confused as he maintained his direction. '_The pack isn't over there!'_

'_We're not going to the pack!' _I answered. '_We're going to find the kamigami!'_

'_What?' _my brother roared louder. '_You think they'll help?'_

I nodded, forgetting that he wouldn't be able to see me, but I felt him shift his weight and amend our course. Under my instruction, he raced up the mountain's slope to where I felt the Woods calling to me. To where I hoped I would find my answers. To where the kamigami lived.


	35. Chapter 35

It wasn't long before I slid from Teru-kun's back, unable to guide him further into the mist. I stumbled on the landing, my knee giving out as well as my injured calf. Clutching my shoulder, I straightened up as best I could and looked over to see that my brother was shaking his head and pawing at his snout, muttering that he was nauseous and light-headed. But for me, every step he had taken forward, the mist – the musubi – embraced me and the battering within my skull lessoned, the pain drifted away, the world became right.

I turned to Teru-kun, reaching out a hand to his leg. '_Are you okay?'_

'_Yeah, yeah,' _he grumbled, shaking his fur as if trying to get water off of him. '_It just doesn't feel right is all. No wonder Tou-san was always nauseous when got back.'_

I frowned. '_What will you do?' _I narrowed my eyes. '_You're going back to the pups, right?'_

He wrinkled his snout, though his ears fell in assent. '_Worried about your big brother, Little Flea?' _He blew a gust of hot air at me. '_I know my place is no longer in the front lines. Besides, someone has to make sure Miyako doesn't start another war.' _He gave a light wag of his tail._ 'I can smell the old hunting trail nearby. I'll just follow it back to the meadow. If I get lost, I'll-' _His ear twitched and finished in a grumble, '_I'll just call for help.' _

My smile was weak as I looked up at him, automatically trying to meet eyes that were no longer there. I opened my mouth and murmured, '_Brother, if I come back, I'll heal y-'_

Teru-kun swished his tail as he leaned his muzzle down next to my face, his whine almost cracking. '_Just make sure you come back, little flea. A quarter moon, full moon, even winters after winters, I'll be waiting.'_

I threw my arms around his muzzle, his whiskers tickling my face. '_I will,' _I murmured. '_Time works differently there.' _I tightened my grip._ 'But we'll always be pack. No matter what.'_

We stayed like that until my brother began pawing at me, whining that he couldn't breathe. I let go and stepped away as Teru-kun stood up. '_I should go,' _he stated a bit haltingly. '_I feel like I'm going to throw up.' _He nudged me with his nose, he turned around and padded away, seeking the edge of the mist.

I turned around, unable to watch him go, and closed my eyes. I wouldn't need them where I was going – not here in the sacred lands. There, I found myself once again at the edge of Nothingness. Once again before that cave of eternity. Once again where I could feel the edges of the universe.

Still just able to feel my physical self, I noted how I was shaking. How this moment was just like the calm before that nightmare had taken hold. The calm when Nothingness still hadn't turned to Pitch. Flashbacks of the madness, of the Pitch, of things I had only survived because Ka-san had saved me, made me tremble at the knees. I knew that if I took one more step forward into the land of the kamigami, either Nothingness would accept me or Pitch would slaughter me.

I took in a deep breath, flinching as the movement nipped at the injury of my shoulder. "Wolves do not show fear," I whispered, knowing I had nowhere I could run anyway. "Wolves do not show fear." And I took a step into the abyss.

And then another.

And then another.

With every inch, the action became less physical, less painful. Soon, it was as if I was floating, only my consciousness propelling me through the dark which began to hum and glow with the musubi. My other senses faded as I took in those strings, felt their warmth enter me and cleanse me of impurity and pain. Those strings washed over me and sent me adrift in those currents beneath the reflection that was reality.

I drifted through this otherworld, through the land of my childhood, the land that defied description. I passed a world adrift in shadow, lit only by the musubi that formed the glowing grasses that still towered above my head, the trees whose boughs glimmered so far above like starlight, and the very air which twinkled as I walked past. Everything here had existed long before me and would exist long after. Everything here was the world at its most primal self.

I drifted, knowing already where I was heading, hoping that the one I wanted – no, _needed _– to see, was there waiting like she always had been. I drifted towards the Sapling, as always drawn towards those unusual rays, like something was calling to me. But those thoughts drifted away from my mind as I approached the shintai's faint, pulsing aura.

I came to a stop and cast my consciousness around, looking for Ka-san. Looking for my mother who had raised me since I was a pup. My mother who had taught me in the ways of both the realm of the kamigami and the realm of man. She would know the answers to the questions I brought. All of the answers. As to who the kami of the shrine was. To how I should get rid of the shinobi. To what I should do next to help remind the war-torn land of the kamigami they forgot. I looked for my mother who'd comfort me despite my failures. Who'd tell me that wolves like us only learn from the past, never mourn it. I looked for my mother who had said that one day we'd meet again.

But she had also said that it wouldn't be here, not in these Ancient Woods. My mother had never lied to me, and, as I looked around, seeing that I was alone, I knew she hadn't lied then either.

She wasn't here. Nor were any of the other kunitsukami. And something within me told me that none of them would be coming anytime soon.

I stood there, staring at the Sapling – the only thing that had bothered to greet me. I stood there and stared at the bare thing and began to laugh at the cruel joke it had all become. No matter how hard I tried, nothing I did worked. Nothing I did changed things. Nothing I did saved anyone. The funniest part, in the end, nothing – not any of this – probably mattered. Not to anyone. Not even to the kamigami.

And all I could do was start laughing. Even in a reality where sound itself existed instead as flickering fractals of musubi, the sudden giggling that overtook me was strange. It was deranged thing, that bounced and echoed within the cavern that was opening up within me. It was a thing directed at me, at everything – a dark perspective that it all had to be some cosmic joke: the only perspective in which any of this made sense.

Still laughing, I wiped away unbidden, soft tears from my eyes as I stared at the shintai, something rousing within me. A dark thing most would call a death wish, but I welcomed it, knowing it for its true name: a challenge. That's what it was. A challenge to any kami out there to stop me, to punish me – anything as long as a kami dared to show its face to me. I wasn't leaving here without answers, not even if it meant me breaking the most cardinal rule – one so innate it never need to be said, never needed to be explained.

I would touch the Sapling.

I stared at it, my resolve strengthening as hysteria burgeoned within me. Something would happen – I knew that. It would probably be bad – I sensed that. Would it get me what I want? Maybe. Did I care at the moment? No.

I cocked my head and looked at it. _It was just so strange_, I thought, marking again how the musubi flowed lazily, tiredly, eternally. _Its so faint, _I murmured. Without reason, another little giggle burst from my lips. _It's as if wood is taking the musubi for itself_. I traced its smooth, barren bark from its skeletal branches down to its immovable roots.

I noticed it then – thing that must've always been but hidden in distance and shadow. Frowning, my bubbling giddiness cooled to a simmer within my chest. I walked forward, scrutinizing the point where the largest root met the sharp incline of the trunk. Even standing, the limb towered above me, but the marred bark was just within reach – at least, within reach of an adult human. I looked up at the four strange gashes that almost looked like someone had gouged wood from the Sapling.

_Looks like someone else wanted to challenge the kamigami, _I considered, the fire burning within me growing more righteous. _None of the kamigami even dare to touch this tree, but man did. The creatures who look so weak._

I scrutinized the marks, noticing something familiar about their shape, about their color. I instinctively went to grasp at my neck, looking for the wooden beads that were probably still lying in the dirt of the meadow. My fingers stretching up to the four, balled notches – each in the exact shape and shade as the eight wooden spheres which had comprised my prayer beads. I barely noticed the discrepancy in numbers as all I could think was: _Could it be? Who did this? The first miko? _

And my fingertips touched the Sapling.

For once, nothing erupted around me. There was no maelstrom of earth and wind. There was no absolute destruction that flung me this way and that. There was just me touching the bark which began to burn brighter and brighter, the musubi within its frame beginning to pool near my touch, begin to flow into me. The shadow realm around me became bathed in an ethereal light, all the universal threads waking to form a veritable heaven as light – not mist – began to pour from the shintai.

Suddenly, four musubi tendrils shot out of the bark, latching themselves on to my hand, wrapping themselves around my arm. But I felt no fear. I didn't pull away as the shintai held me there – no, _embraced_ me. I simply stared in wonder at the ancient being that was waking before me, the being that didn't belong to this earth, to this realm.

_Amatsukami, _I thought, its brilliance growing too much for me. I had to turn away, the kami manifesting itself before me.

Suddenly, concepts echoed out from somewhere deep within my core – thoughts, meanings, images that were not my own. It had begun to speak to me, though speaking was a term applicable only to humans. This was a Kami and not one of the earth like Ka-san had been. This Kami was not even remotely relatable to humans, no human terms capable of even describing its aura. This was a Kami of Takamagahara – of the heavenly realm so vastly different that it was beyond any earthly comprehension. Speaking was as good as a description for what the Entity was doing as describing Kizuato-san's howl as in terms of that little pug's bark.

But somehow, I understood It. I understood Its words that caused the ethereal musubi to tighten around me, threatening to drown me in its sheer power. But somehow, I held my own. I held my own and understood.

_You, _It spoke, its essence winding around me. _You are still not ready. _

My answer was pathetically weak in response, but I spat it out anyway. _I don't care._

I could feel something akin to amusement bubble deep within me, its tendrils gouging deeper. _Good. _


	36. Chapter 36

A/N: Guys. I'm so excited to have finally written this chapter. When I was done, I literally got up from my computer and started dork-ing out because it's the first major plot point of the story (with more to come!). Hopefully it's good/makes sense. I put a lot of work into the mythology part to combine. If you'd like, I could post up links to the original Shinto stories if you want more info (though I try and give you the need-to-know stuff in the story). Comment if you want it! And, as always, thanks for reading up to this point! :D I hope you enjoy!

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_The Sapling, _I gaped. _It's not just a shintai. It's the kami. The_ Kami _of the shrine. _I should've realized it sooner. The signs had been so obvious, so glaring. The reverence all the kamigami had held for it. The way the musubi gathered around it, channeled through it. _How could I be so dumb?_

I felt something solidify within me, around me, and I knew the Kami had not only heard me but was agreeing with me. I bristled, understanding that privacy did not exist now as this entity weaved itself into my very being. Slowly, I could feel the barrier between us melting down, disappearing as my thoughts became Its, and Its became mine.

_The Sapling? _It spoke._ Do you even forget my true name? _The density melted and began churning, like the rapids in the river which thrashed the water into a spinning vortex. The writhing deepened within me – anger or laughter I wasn't sure, but it exploded outward with a force that filled me with a strange sense of vertigo.

Focusing on my hand, watching the pulsing grip of Its tendrils of musubi, I managed to keep myself steady._ The less your name is evoked, the better, _I answered.

The churning deepened. Anger or laughter I was still unsure.

Memories of the night of the Kagura, of my near-death experience came floating to the forefront of my mind. And I saw them again. Saw them all. Saw Utau-kun, Ashi-chan, Hana-san, the unborn pups, Teru-kun, Akio-senpai. All those that had been hurt by It, by me. Then the others, still living yet in danger because of what I had done surfaced as well.

_Why? _I plead, knowing that It had relived it all with me, hoping that It could understand me even though I could barely comprehend It. _Is there even any point to any of this? _Unable to hold back the rage, hurt, and confusion any longer, I balled them up into words and spat, _Why did you hurt them? _

The Kami didn't speak. Instead, visions filled me. Visions that dispersed and coalesced, bursting into fragments before reforming, their edges lacing together to create a new image. It took me a few minutes to pin the pieces together. To realize what was happening. To experience the amalgam of sensations that comprised Its thoughts, Its memories.

The first felt like it rose up from within my own depths – like recalling a childhood tune I had long since forgotten the lyrics too. But there was another tinge to it. Something unnatural. Something alien. But just like some old tune, no vision came to greet me. At least, nothing I would say I could _see. _I could only recognize it as when I reached into the musubi – when I recognized and played with the threads of existence – but this was so much more. This was _everything. _This was a glimpse into the truth, into Takamagahara itself.

Then suddenly, bounds were created, limits were fixed. What once knew everything suddenly found Itself in a form that comprehended nothing. That's when sight – something I could barely recognize in the aftershocks of Its revelation – manifested itself in strange blotches of color and shadow before It cast these alien, useless pupils around. But the Kami didn't need them. It could feel them. Sense them. It knew the life forms surrounding It, gazing at It: humans always tended to do that.

But, seated here, watching this memory play out around me, these sensations fill me, I had my own thoughts, my own realizations. I didn't see the people gathered in front of the Kami as strangers. No. Understanding filled me as I recognized the people. Recognized where I was and when it was. Akio-senpai, Yori-senpai, Yuuta-sama, and Azuumi-senpai all stood there, all staring at me in mixtures of horror and fascination.

_It's that night, _I knew. _The night of the Kagura. When the Kami took me as Its vessel. When the Kami manifested Itself on earth._

The vision shifted as the Kami looked down at familiar tan and scratched hands. _My _hands. The Kami stretched out the fingers, feeling wrong somehow, too warped, too contained. There was a prickling at the edge of consciousness – a prickling that the Kami hadn't recognized. But I did: it was pain. I recognized it in the Kami's memory just before my outermost flesh began to turn ashen as the Kami's musubi seared it from beneath, too powerful to be contained in something so weak. Smoking, the skin began to blister and burn off, falling like disintegrating snow to the floor beneath.

The Kami's musubi poured out of my human flesh, washing the haiden in pure energy in a muffled roar. Some of this reality begin to break under the pressure, be flung away by the force of the rolling explosion. But the world erupting around the Kami failed to even earn Its attention.

With a consciousness far larger than I could fathom even within these memories, the Kami sensed something beyond the walls of the haiden. Beyond the reaches of the forest. To the village that lay at the base of these mountains. The Kami snapped its eyes towards where the town lay, the entirety of its focus through the entangled mass of the livings' essences, bearing down on a single, yet overwhelming, individual's substance.

The Kami's hatred made reality quake.

Unable to know what It was thinking, I found myself surprised that I recognized that essence as well. That unique writhing mass of energy was something I would never forget. That putrid, revolting musubi was as familiar to me as Teru-kun's, and it belonged to only one person.

_Habu, _I recognized within the Kami's memories, my own revulsion mimicking Its. _Death._

The images stopped, and I could see my hand bracing against the Sapling once more. There was a strange sensation flowing from the Kami as the whirlpool slowed to a stop, the rapids being replaced by a steady creek. One that ran deeper than I could fathom.

_What? _I flared, incredulous. _You're a kami. Why do you care about her that much? _

The creek slowed, the surface looking flat and still, but its depths kept barreling past, their strength pushing boulders along in their wake. And I realized it then. This creek wasn't below me. It was above me, around me, drowning me, carrying me. For there really wasn't a creek and me. It was just the creek, and I was just another droplet in the stream.

Suddenly new sensations, new visions began to bubble up along the surface. But this time the image was one of my own memories. Yuuta-sama's office came into focus around me – a younger me – as I nestled in my usual chair. The fire bathed the room in a soft light, its light tinting my sensei orange.

"Mira-chan," Yuuta-sama announced, leaning forward with a scroll in his hand. "I want you to read this tonight."

"What is it?" I mumbled, the voice of my younger self tinny, the words slow and somewhat slurred. I took the paper from his hand and eyed Yuuta-sama's careful handwriting.

"The story of creation," he answered. "How everything came into being. The tale of Izanagi-sama and Izanami-sama. I've taken this section from the Nihongi text, the more detailed but younger version of the Kojiki. I've written out a summary here for you with easier words, but I expect you to be reading the original version within a month."

I glanced down at the paper and paled. The text was long especially in relation to the stubby fingers of my youth. I remember reading the first two sentences for ten minutes, sounding the words aloud. Then I began to read, haltingly, stopping to ask for many clarifications.

"When heaven and earth began," I stumbled out, "three deities came into being: Amenominakanushi-sama, Takamimusubi-sama, and Kamimusubi-sama. The heavens and musubi followed their wake, the rest of existence forming behind them. These three deities are the highest of the divine and are known as the Kotoamatsukami. Their very existences form the foundations of reality."

The younger me took a deep breath, still not in the habit of breathing after the end of every sentence. Then I continued, "The world was young and chaotic then. Land and water tore at each other, unmixed and floating like two oils. The Kotoamatsukami only tended to two things there – two reeds. From these reeds, the Izanagi-sama and Izanami-sama sprouted, Lord and Lady of Creation. Before vanishing, the Kotoamatsukami gave the young pair a jeweled spear to organize the chaos of earth and water, giving them dominion over the world.

"Izanagi-sama and Izanami-sama, standing on the starlit bridge between the heavens and the world, dipped their spear into the ocean brine and stirred. When they pulled out the spear, the salt that dripped off of it formed the earth, and they descended to the land to be joined in marriage. This was the golden age of the earth, and all were happy."

That's when the sensations began to bubble up from the depths – the Kami's perception rising to intermix with my own shallow memories along the surface. No images came then, but the emotions did. At first I thought it was a renewed burst of my own manic giddiness, but this delight was deep, steady. It was like the pure bliss I felt when I returned to the Ancient Woods and saw Ka-san waiting for me, her tail flicking in welcome. But I knew that happiness wasn't in this memory of mine where I was reading: the only thing I had felt then was frustration. No. This euphoria was coming from another origin. From It. And I realized then that the kamigami and humans at least share one thing: joy.

"Their bliss only multiplied," my tinny voice continued, "as they had children who grew to become the deities which inhabit the earth, the sea, and the heavens. Born amongst these deities was the seemingly weak, mortal race of man. But they were the favored children of Izanagi-sama and Izanami-sama as, despite their short, tempestuous lives, they possessed their parents' powers of creation."

Then the joy vanished.

"Yet," my child-self spoke, "as with all things, this happiness was not to last. This Golden Age came to end when Izanami-sama gave birthed the fire deity, Kagutsuchi-sama, whose violent flames consumed Izanami-sama, and the great goddess lost her life."

Agony. Sorrow. Helplessness. They filled me as the inhuman screams of nightmares burst through me, tearing me apart in stride with their master. In the end, I didn't know if the heartbreak aching within my being was my own or the Kami's.

"Izanagi-sama grieved over Izanami-sama, his most cherished companion. Succumbing to insanity as he buried his wife, he turned and beheaded his own child, Kagutsuchi-sama, who split into multiple deities."

I couldn't see it exactly. Couldn't see what had been wrought. These alien memories were still too transcendent for me to grasp. But I could guess what I was seeing: brilliant, blinding flames which just now were dying to a simmer. As I looked at those flickering flames, I was filled with the Kami's deep loathing – a hatred which echoed my own.

"Still deeply in love," my words rolled on, "Izanagi-sama longed for Izanami-sama, knowing he was unable to exist without her. In his devotion, the Great Lord went to the underworld, the Yomi, in search of her. He sought her relentlessly, the ages passing, until he found her in the darkness. Heart full, he called to her and asked her to come back to the land of the living with him. Izanami, tears of both pain and joy on her cheeks, knew it was impossible for she had eaten the fruit of the Yomi and was forever trapped. Yet, the Great Lady promised him that she would go speak with the kamigami of the underworld, but she begged him to not look at her as she did so. However, his love was so great, he could not bear another moment without setting eyes on her, and he summoned a light and saw her face."

Flesh that must have been whiter and more pristine than fresh fallen snow had mottled to shades of death and rot. Bubbled and blistered, the festering skin was marbled with nauseous green, putrid black, curdled purples and blues, and feverish scarlets – all visible beneath a sheen of a disgusting white slime. The flesh had puffed out, swollen with a sludge-like concoction of blood and fat so rotten it had become an ink-colored sludge that oozed out of her orifices and open sores. The mouth was open – the lips falling from the teeth like strips of decaying meat - revealing a set of too white teeth upon which maggot-like creatures scurried away from the light. Other foul things, basking in her ooze, slithered from her face to hide in the blood- and gore-matted and burnt hair. But her eyes. Those pallid orbs belonged to Death.

Then the skull began to scream.

"Ashamed to be seen in this condition, Izanami-sama was filled with hatred, and she chased Izanagi-sama out of the underworld, Fleeing the Yomi at last, Izanagi-sama grasped a huge rock and closed the passage to the underworld. Enraged, Izanami-sama shouted through this barrier that she would strangle one thousand humans each day. Izanagi-sama responded that if she did so, he would each day cause fifteen hundred people to be born. And so love dissolved to an eternal hatred, and their eternal strife was born."

Then, a white wolf filled my vision.

"Distraught, Izanagi-sama found himself without purpose, questioning what he had done. Then Kukuri-hime – a kami – approached him and spoke. Her words have been lost to time, but she soothed his pain with her wisdom."

The tendrils of musubi danced upon the wolf – searing flames of the deepest scarlets and the richest golds which created constantly shifting patterns. Her fur was constantly in motion, appearing more like white, roiling clouds that barely masked a raging sun. Her eyes were a scorching amber that pierced even the Kami.

_Ka-san_.

My childish voice resumed, its pace slow, tired, bored. "Izanagi-sama returned to Takama-ga-hara and bathed to purify himself of the Yomi. Cleansing himself, the deities Amaterasu-sama, Tsukuyomi-sama, and Susanoo-sama were born, and Izanagi-sama gave them dominion over the earth before he departed."

The Kami's vision took shape around me, wrapping me in the vortex of strange unfathomable energy, of what felt like the very core of the universe. I couldn't face the light directly, not even in this faded form of memory. But I could sense it. Sense it splitting the Kami, creating three more entities aside from its innermost core. These entities burst into being but before I could make them out, the vision collapsed.

I returned to the memory of my younger self, the faded essence of simple, naïve confusion washing over me like an ablution. The younger me lifted my eyes from the text to look at Yuuta-sama, a frown marring my lips. "Where'd Izanagi-sama go?" I had yipped.

Yuuta-sama tilted his head, his glasses blinding me momentarily as they caught the light of the fire. "That's the last time he's mentioned," he answered in that soft tone of his. "No one knows."

But that wasn't true. At least, not anymore. The memories and visions which had washed over me made it abundantly clear. I knew to where Izanagi-sama had vanished. And I knew who was his miko. Yet all I could think was, _Wolves do not show fear._

My childhood memory kept playing around me as Yuuta-sama cocked his head at me and tested, "So what happened to Izanami-sama?"

I felt a bitter taste spread along my tongue and angry little shivers race up my arms. "Yomi," I spat. "Deserved it."

Yuuta-sama tutted me and my harsh conclusion. "Now, these are just stories that were written by humans much after the fact. We don't know what truly happened. In fact, we may never know." He adjusted his glasses on his nose and stated, "The Kojiki says that Izanami-sama transferred her soul to either a human or animal at her death, but this isn't found in the Nihongi." The corners of his lips lifted as he gave a little shrug. "Maybe she still walks among us."

_He was right,_ Izanagi-no-Okami spoke.

Another vision appeared, shimmering before me. The Kotoamatsukami had called it a reed: humans would never dare to name it such. Just by looking at it, I felt myself humbled with an awe only rivaled by that I felt when looking at its twin – what I had always called the Sapling. For I knew what it was the same thing the Sapling was: the birthplace of a kami of creation. And its name was the only logical title to award it, the name that humans had been calling it since the dawn of time.

_Shinju, _I murmured.

Though the two trees appeared nearly identical, there was no possible way to confuse them. While the Sapling was a subdued puppeteer of musubi, this other tree felt tainted, rotten. I instinctively felt myself pulling away, trying to avoid the putrid musubi which dwelled within and oozed from it. I recognized it as the same filth which had oozed from Izanami-sama: the taint of the Yomi.

The world, poisoned by its existence, began to grow dark around it – filled with smoke and cries of pain and grief. Of war. From this nightmare, a fruit began to form, gently weighing down one of the edges of the tree's great branches. As the smoke and anguish grew thicker, the fruit grew fatter until it eventually fell. It splattered onto the earth, bursting open and staining the ground with scarlet gore. But in the center of the mess, covered in the polluted guts, lay a wailing child: a girl.

A girl whose bone-white skin looked sickly beneath the even paler hair. A girl who clasped at the two faint horns at either side of her skull. A girl whose eyes held no pupils, looking empty beneath a red, bulging orb dotting her forehead above two faintly glowing scars. A girl who pulsed with that putrid power.

I watched her as she grew older, as she became a woman whose sheer power put an end to the wars around her. With the power of Izanami-no-Okami, so polluted and corrupted, her very existence threatened the end of humanity. That was until she was stopped by her own two sons who divided her power, fracturing her very _spirit_ along the seams of mitama into nine, weaker entities. Entities which still wreaked havoc and destruction on whatever land they touched. Entities in the shape of fantastical creatures simmering with the dark musubi. The six-tailed one – one of marked by the same oozing, deathly pale of Izanami – shifted into a human shape which shared those same pallid eyes of Izanami. And of-

_Death, _I hissed in recognition.

_So there is some part of you that understands, that remembers, _Izanagi spoke_. _

_So Habu, _I stabbed, _is Izanami-sama? _

_A piece, _the Kami answered, sending a prickling along my spine at my honorific. _Humans have learned to manipulate these weaker portions of her, yet most become consumed by the taint of the Yomi and the corruption of Izanami. They are no better than her. _The kami fixed Habu before me – replaying the memory of her snapping my ankle into a useless wreck – his message clear: _As you have seen. _

I felt an anger begin to writhe within me, fanned by the kami's own revulsion. I stared down at my hand, saw my nails snapping as they dug into the bark. _Why? _I snarled, indignation falling from the flames of my anger like ash. _Why didn't Ka-san or any of the other kamigami tell me any of this?_

_It is not the place of lesser kamigami to interfere, _he answered. The memory of Ka-san's words echoed behind his message: _There are many things I have not been able to tell you, things that cannot be uttered in these woods. Things you will learn when you are ready. Things only mortals can truly understand._

I frowned at the last of Ka-san's words, wondering how a mortal could possibly comprehend _this_, any of this. These were the works of kamigami – _the kamigami_ – the greatest of all only after the Kotoamatsukami who had disappeared long ago. Even now I was reeling, turning numb from all this information, able only to process the concepts now and not the ramifications. All I could do was clutch at the core of my being and hope that would be enough.

But the Kami knew where my thoughts were heading, and it felt like ice was cracking deep within me. _Kukurihime-sama? _he spoke, gorges opening, cliffs collapsing. _Her interference before has been forgiven, but she would be foolish to return and face my wrath. She should stay with the rest of the kamigami who have fled the approach of Izanami._

_What? _Discomfort prickled along my consciousness as I felt his anger widening._ Interference? What're you talking about? _

He needed nothing more than an image to answer. An image of a town engulfed in smoke and fire. A town whose people screamed into the night only to gag on the ash. A town who served as the only suitable backdrop for the omen of death that was Habu. Her fetid musubi leaked visibly around her, forming a shadow of that slug-like beast, but even as the Izanagi's power lashed out chaotically from my flesh, the difference in power was clear. That was until the scarred man appeared, the divine beads in his hand just as-

_Ka-san pulled me back, _I murmured.

Izanagi-no-Okami quelled his shattering anger, dulling it to a low rumbling. _Once that amatsukami understood the gravity of this war. Now, she believes another task more important. _There was a final quake as he uttered, _Just another traitor._

The musubi of the Izanagi-no-Okami tightened its coil on me, the great Kami focusing more of his consciousness upon me. It was strangling, and I gasped, but Izanagi-no-Okami didn't release his grip. I scrambled against his strength, writhing free just enough to be able to think just clearly enough to hear his words.

_Untrained. Weak. Barely able to survive even this, _he spoke – the words not of criticism but of truth. _If you could fully wield my power, you would crush the piece of Izanami who threatens you now. While you have the will, you lack the strength. _

I felt Izanagi-sama's life force pulse around me then as if he was extending some invisible hand. And I felt the dark reaching out to me, calling to me. Just as it had the night of the kagura.

I flinched. _No!_ The word shot out and pierced the dark that had been gathering around me. _What happened that night can't happen again!_ I steeled myself – a small, frail girl before the kami of creation. _I won't let it._

I could hear the screams of metal then, the snarls of wolves and the cries and shouts of man. I could see the shrine, drenched in searing flames, billowing their tears of smoke. Azuumi-senpai threw open the door, her face as sallow as the ash floating by her. Terror pinched her face, making her tears fall in strange rivulets down her worn cheeks. Face aghast, she reached back through the door and yanked out Yori-senpai who stumbled and fell into the dirt. Yori-senpai clutched at his chest, eyes turning red as he hacked and coughed out streams of spittle, his frail lungs beginning to fail him.

Goggles leapt into view, latching his arms around Yori-senpai's shoulders and shoving him to his feet. He grabbed onto Azuumi-senpai's hand and began to drag the both of them away just as a shower of kunai rained from their left. Akio-senpai leapt between them, smacking the kunai from the air but missing one which sliced her shoulder and sailed past, heading straight for Yori-senpai. Goggles leapt forward, snatching the kunai from the air, twisted, and flung it back in the direction it had come from. He turned to Akio-senpai who commanded that he keep moving, so he did.

The boy grabbed onto the priests once again and yanked them towards the trees and away from the shrine that collapsed behind them with a final creak of its old, tired bones. Azuumi-senpai turned and shrieked "Yuuta-sama!" at the flames devouring from the shrine's wooden skeleton. Obito-san kept them running until they reached the forest's edge, grinding to a halt next to tree embedded with a marked kunai.

In a flash, Yellow Hair landed beside them, Yuuta-sama weakly clinging to his back, as if out of thin air. The man knelt down, maneuvering Yuuta-sama gently to the overgrown grass amongst the roots of the trees. With one glance at the old man's white lips and quivering chest he shouted, "Rin-chan! Get here now!"

The kunoichi, fighting beside Akio-senpai, flung another kunai before sprinting back to the trees. Goggles stared at Yuuta-sama, his eyes obviously wide even behind the orange tint, as he panted, "He's-"

Yellow Hair cut him off with a sharp hand movement and the shinobi refocused himself, spun on his heel, and took off running, giving a last glance at Rin-chan before taking her position. The kunoichi slid to a stop on her knees beside Yuuta-sama and placed her hands over his chest, the glow already beginning along her fingertips. But Yuuta-sama's own essence barely responded, his own light dim and flickering.

Azuumi-senpai crawled over to him, sobs wracking her chest as she touched his paling cheeks. Yori-senpai, still clutching at his chest, looked in shock as he watched the gūji's chest give a last flutter before resting forever. Rin-chan bowed her head, her teeth gritting as Yellow Hair leaned forward and closed those emerald eyes forever. The jōnin reached over and grabbed the forearm of the girl, giving sharp orders in a low voice, "Guard these two and try to move them towards the rendezvous point. I'll support Obito-kun as we give you an opening."

She gave a sharp nod and grabbed onto Azuumi-senpai, trying to tear the old woman away from Yuuta-sama's prone form. Yori-senpai just sat there, shaking and silent as his gaze swept over the embers of the shrine onto Yuuta-sama. Yellow Hair dropped to a knee beside him, clenched his shoulder and met his frightened eyes. "You need to get moving," he spoke, never breaking his gaze.

Yori-senpai struggled to gain his feet, still in a trance but at least mobile.

Minato-san gave an approving nod at him, glanced to Rin-chan who had gotten Azuumi-senpai to her feet, and leapt into the battle.

I jerked away from the nightmare. Only stymied, the pulsing of dark musubi simply deepened around me, pooling at the edges of my consciousness in wait. The Pitch had returned.

_If you do nothing, _Izanagi-sama replied, something like curiosity in his voice_, they will all be slaughtered._

_Th-that wasn't a memory? _I trembled, the details hardening around me. My thoughts defined themselves against the kami's, and I realized the truth. Izanagi-sama didn't need to say anything more as I dived into my own recollections, fitting pieces of the past together. Kizuato-san's call, the one that Teru-kun had heard, hadn't been for us: it had been the signal, the warning that the Mist shinobi were attacking. That's what Grey Hair had been listening to in his receiver – the alert given by one of his comrades. And Izanagi-sama, connected to his shrine, was able to glimpse the onslaught of the Mist before his sanctuary succumbed to flames: the Amatsukami wasn't showing me what was happening at the shrine.

My grip went slack, and my fingers slid down bark formed only by the immaterial tendrils of the universal fabric. The musubi that formed my blood dripped from my broken nails, making a trail of stars on the shimmering bark. I watched it sprinkle from my hand, falling like shooting stars that burst upon the huge gnarled root on which I stood.

But as I stared at it – stared at the blood – I only wanted to see more of it. See more of it dripping from me. See it swelling around me, threatening to drown me. But not mine. No. Not only mine. _Theirs. I_ wanted – _needed _– to see the corpses of the Mist shinobi, needed to see life leave them as they writhed at my feet. But most of all, I _craved _her's. Habu's. Death's.

_Izanami's_, the Kami spoke, his rage swelling, crackling besides my own, enveloping it, enveloping me. For the first time in my existence, my mind was cleared of all thought. My consciousness was reduced to the basest of urges, the most primitive form of survival. I was something less than human, less than animal. A primordial being ruled by bloodthirst. Just like the amatsukami before me.

_So tell me miko, _Izanagi-no-Okami spoke, w_hat is your duty? _

_To kill Izanami, _I answered, the words comfortable as they left me as if I was singing the most ancient of lullabies. _To kill her and condemn her again to the Yomi. _

I dipped my head, allowing the Kami's musubi to engulf me, the black surround me. I dipped my head and accepted my role as vessel of Izanagi-no-Okami. The Pitch vibrated with power, echoing with the kami's words: _Now you understand, my miko. _


	37. Chapter 37

They were silent. All of them. Ever since the girl had erupted into existence. Not with a flash of light, not with a noise, but with the quaking of the very air as if reality itself was splitting along its seams. Only the flames feasting on the last bits of the shrine's wooden flesh dared that dared to make a sound. But the creatures of reason – man and wolf – had frozen, the points of sharp eyes and glinting weapons darting between each other and the girl.

They recognized her of course. The bronzed hair. The frayed hakama. The bruised, olive skin. The swollen ankle, its flesh bulging over the leather brace, her feet dirty and bare swaying beneath. The girls' eyes were closed, her head slumped, but they didn't need to see the muddy pupils to know who she was.

The air rumbled, wind whipping into action as it raced between the living things, darting from one to the other as if trying to shove them away. But all only braced themselves, remaining firm in their stances, readying themselves for what was coming. The wind left them then, forsaking them in its flight, only managing to steal the confused, searching and breathless whisper of "Wh-where's K-Kakashi-kun?" from a kunoichi's lips.

She collapsed then, the girl who had appeared. Her limbs sprawling in a useless pile as her cheek hit the ground, hard. She wasn't moving. For those trained in the hunt, they knew she wasn't breathing either. But the air continued to silently snap, crackling with an unseen energy that was coming from her.

Finally gathering her senses, the old woman dressed in a miko's garb, shrieked, "Mira!" She ripped her wrist from the kunoichi's hand and ran to the girl as fast as her hips would carry her. The kunoichi made a move to follow her before the bear-like priest jumped in front of her, his arm held out, a kunai steady in a practiced, wrinkled hand. His eyes briefly flitted to the fragile priest at his side who had slowly fallen to his knees, his arms cradled in his chest as tears began to glance the sides of his cheeks. The sickly man shook his head, his eyes wide on the girl as he murmured, "No. No. No. No."

The shinobi-turned-priest turned his gaze back to the crumpled girl, his scar shining like a beacon as the flame's light bounced off a coat of sweat. He couldn't suppress the feeling of dread that was leaching out of his old bones just like that night so long ago. It was happening again. He could see the old woman's fingers begin to blister, peeling back just as his had when he touched the girl's cheeks. How the air itself seemed to fracture around the girl, how the mountains began to quake, reality scream. But this time, he wasn't holding the prayer beads.

"What should we do, Akio-kun?" the frail priest clacked between chattering teeth.

The man shifted the kunai in his grip, noting how the kunoichi stared up at him too, ready for any command. "Yori-kun, we need to perform the harae and cleanse her of the kami. Get the spring water and the cleansing salt." He turned a black pupil onto the Mist shinobi, appraising the one who stared back with an inhuman grin. "Rin-chan," he ordered the kunoichi, "cover him."

"Hai, Akio-san," she answered, grabbing onto the priest's shaking shoulder to steady him as he rose.

Yori buckled once, his eyes catching sight of the dead gūji, before he chattered, "Th-this w-way!"

Akio felt them leave as he maintained his gaze with the twisted creature that had once been the only student he had ever accepted. The one who had once skipped everywhere she went, somehow always catching butterflies only to present them to him during training breaks. The one who, even when nursing a broken, bloodied arm after a mission, still had fixed him with a beaming smile. The one who grew up before his eyes, who had fallen in love, and who had asked him to take her father's absent place at her wedding. The one who the same day that she had her only child, he had proposed as the Mist's only option for a new jinchūriki to the Mizukage. The one who bawled his name as she was dragged away: the one he had abandoned.

He suppressed the urge to shudder as he saw her eyes began to glow that telltale red as the bijū's chakra began to leak from her. Those same red eyes of hatred that had made him realize what he had done so long ago. The same red eyes he had been running from ever since.

"Wake up! Wake up!" It was the old miko's voice as she shouted at the girl, shaking the prone figure violently as the rocks cut into her wrinkled knees. She ignored how an oily white began to show beneath the puckered flesh of her fingers, but continued to shove at the child she had long since taken in as her own. The child the most delirious part of her believed was her own babe, given back to her by the kamigami. Her own babe whose curled locks were that same auburn. The babe who had left her just as suddenly as the man who said he loved her, who said he'd marry her despite how she had to sell herself to survive.

The delirious joy the aged miko felt as the girl began to twitch – the girl's muscles finally remembering their function – was sapped as she heard a cold, woman's voice order, "Restrain the jinchūriki before the bijū comes out. Keep her alive, but I don't want her moving again."

The old woman whirled to her feet, her joints cracking as age tried to restrain her. She flung her arms out to either side and faced the twelve shinobi of the Mist, her puffy glazed eyes piercing the white orbs of their leader. The old miko was something less than human as she roared, "Stay away from her!"

Before she even finished her sentence, a Mist shinobi donning a rabbit mask made a quick series of gestures with his hand and shouted, "Suiton: Hiding in Mist!" Suddenly, fog coated the entire clearing, but the priestess had lost track of their movements long before then.

Muscles quaking not out of fear, but fury, she stood there, her old heart pounding against her frail ribs. Her brown eyes darted around as she heard the clash of metal on metal, the quick shouts of what she knew must be different ninjutsu. She could just make out a Mist shinobi backpedaling, throwing shuriken after shuriken at a humongous black wolf who shook off the weapons as easily as it would a gnat. Its thick coat keeping it from harm, the wolf leapt forward, its fangs snapping shut with a horrendous squelch around the man's head and torso before another cloud of fog covered them from view.

A fireball erupted off to her left, its light glancing off a barrage of before unseen shuriken heading straight for her. Her eyes widened, but she didn't move – _couldn't _move, not with the little girl right behind her. Suddenly the goggled shinobi leapt in front of her, smacking the metal from the air. The boy was just about to hit the last shuriken towards the ground when a Mist shinobi burst from the fog, his mask a blazing white beneath streaks of blood. The boy had to block the attack heading straight for his throat, and at the last second he managed to crash his kunai against hers and-

The priestess stumbled a bit, her vision growing blurry, her skin cold and wet. She thought for a moment it was just an upswell of the mist blanketing her, but when she looked down, she saw the real reason sticking out of her chest. Crumbling to her knees, the woman gasped, but instead of air, something like water rushed into her lungs. Vision flickering, she looked to where she knew her daughter was and began weakly reaching out towards her, trying to shield her, protect her.

But there was grass in her way. Grass that seemed to be growing before her very eyes. Grass that was reaching for the girl just like she was. Reaching _up. _

The priestess choked as instead of a soft cry, blood bubbled from her lips. Even with the world fading and contorting around her, she was certain of what she saw. Certain that the girl's feet were now dangling an inch from the floor, some force lifting her up by the nape of her neck. Certain that the girl turned her head and _looked _at her even if her eyes were still closed, her form slumped. And in Azuumi's dying moments, she let her hand fall, knowing that she left one daughter to finally see the other.

Ten feet away, Akio was the first to see and understand what was happening with Mira. Yuuta-sama had explained it the day after the Kagura. That he had been worried that Mira wasn't ready, how he had mistakenly believed that she wouldn't have been able to make a connection with the kami at all. In order for a kami to manifest itself in this realm, Yuuta-sama had said, it needed a miko capable of harboring the necessary amount of musubi for the kami's existence – one who knew how to perfectly control and direct the musubi within herself in order to coexist with the kami. Yet if Mira wasn't ready, the kami would know and refuse to manifest – the Kagura would be a harmless failure.

Yet for some reason the kami had chosen to risk itself and manifest anyway, erratically trying to keep itself fastened to earth, its own essence leaking out in those pulses of power. It was willing to sacrifice both its vessel and itself to wreak utter destruction. Why? He still didn't know, but the kami's every movement had focused in on Habu. Anyway, it didn't manner. He knew it was happening again.

Akio could almost see It now, moving beneath Mira's flesh, trying to force control. He saw the awkward movements, the odd sickening bulging beneath her skin as the Being attempted to move muscle but shifted bone instead.

'_It's a wonder Mira's still functions,' Yuuta-sama had said. 'Imagine your body being stolen from you. She was probably in there, fighting back and losing.'_

"Mira," he whispered, his chest aching. But those memories shattered as he saw a Mist ANBU unleash a series of kunai wrapped in seals aimed directly for Mira's chakra points. Unwilling to sacrifice the few kunai the Leaf had loaned him, he snapped out "Suiton: Water Formation Wall!" The water surged from his lips, but his speed and strength had slowed considerably in his age and disuse. One kunai managed to escape, but was knocked slightly off course. If Mira had made any attempt to move she could have easily dodged the missile, but the dagger grazed her unflinching flesh, and cardinal blood spilled from the shallow wound along her shoulder.

Akio turned to give chase to the ANBU but the mist before him parted to reveal the person who had been watching him all this time. Habu. She tilted her head at him, a sickening smile curving the lips above those rotten, filed teeth and feverish gums. Maybe if he was still a shinobi, he'd have been able to steel his heart, but he had long since given up that life, long since given into his guilt.

"Ha-" he spoke, but her sharp hiss made the name stick in his throat.

"_No_!" she shrieked, her eye twitching, her knuckles white. "You don't get to say a_nything_! Just hold up your kunai so we can spar_, sensei!_" Froth built along her lips as her words became more feverish, her eyes succumbing more to that putrid crimson as the bijū gained a stronger hold over her.

He raised the kunai and told himself his hands only shook because of age. He knew what he wanted to say to her. That he knew he was wrong. That he had wanted to die, had been begging for death to take him ever since he had last seen her. That he still loved her as a daughter after all these years. That he knew she would never be able to forgive him.

But he had already told her all this before.

Told her when she was strapped down, still bloody from the sealing. Told her when her eyes first turned to slits as they were about to now. All he could say now as he embraced the fate he had created for himself, "Habu, your son, i-is he okay? How's Zabuza?"

She shrieked and launched herself at him, gouging a deep line, opening muscle from his right shoulder down to his side so that the blade glanced off his ribs. Akio buckled, wasted muscle coiling backwards like a released spring, and his arms fell weakly to his sides, still functional but barely.

The kunoichi grabbed him by his throat, her chakra snapping at his skin as she leaned in close and squeezed until her knuckles nearly popped out of her skin. He didn't fight back as she snarled, "They took him away. Just like I'll take _her _away." Her eyes flashed towards where he knew Mira was, and he suddenly felt cold. "I'll train her well," she snarled. "Just how you taught me. I'll make sure to make her suff-"

He was flung forward just as Habu lost her footing. Blinded, he already made to rub at his eyes and gain his feet, knowing that the vertigo would fade in fifteen seconds. He looked to Mira, knowing she had been the source of a pulse of raw chakra. Though her eyes were closed, he knew she was staring directly where the Mist ANBU must have positioned himself. He heard Yori-kun scream, and already felt himself turning to help his comrade but Habu charged him, fanatically shrieking and unable to recognize the true danger they were all in.

The scream left Yori's throat raw, the bucket of ritual water sloshing in his hands, as he saw what once was a fully-grown, muscled and lethal shinobi erupt into an explosion of scarlet gore. The flare of energy hit him a few seconds later, and he stumbled backwards, nearly falling if the kunoichi hadn't propped him up. Yori watched, transfixed as the shinobi's ungainly innards flung themselves haphazardly around the clearing. They dropped amongst the disoriented combatants who, after the last aftershock, cleared their heads and recognized it wasn't rain. The surge of power cleared the mist, washing it away as quickly as it had arrived, affording Yori a view of the aftermath.

Three wolves lay on the ground dead. Two wolves – the scarred black one and the white one Mira had described and called Kizuato-san and Hana-san – remained upright but were buckling on shaking limbs. They panted, their fangs red with blood, their bulk both saving and dooming them. The reason they still stood must've been because Minato-san stood between them, but they had played a valuable role: the success of their alliance was evidenced by the bodies of four Mist shinobi strewn around them, the fifth on the edge of Minato-san's kunai.

The goggled boy – Obito-kun, Yori remembered – was panting hard too. He needed the break the Kami-masquerading-as-Mira had afforded. He was struggling against two masked shinobi of the Mist who had him cornered against the trunk of a tree. The boy clutched at his side, his jacket turning scarlet beneath the clenched hand. But the boy's gaze wasn't solely on the enemies surrounding him. His eyes kept flicking to Mira, just twenty yards in front of him: he knew what had happened. The whites of his eyes told Yori at least that much.

_It's here, _Yori thought, his terrified gaze falling upon the little girl he had helped raise_. _He saw three of the Mist circling her, weapons raised, every muscle alert for her next move. He wanted to call out to them to run, sprint for their lives, but his lungs felt as if they were filled with cement. His shaking nearly emptied the bucket as he gasped for air, trying to work his stiff jaw as he could feel an epileptic episode threaten to begin. But his panic was stymied when he heard Akio-kun's snap, "You remember the words?"

Yori jolted but stammered out a, "H-hai!" He looked to the grizzled priest who had mounted a defense closest to where Yori stood, making sure the path for the harae was clear. The ex-shinobi faced down the Mist kunoichi who was spilling forth a cloak of what Yori knew must be chakra. The energy falling from her was a pure yet feral murderous intent.

"Well," Akio-kun snapped back, "get to-"

Air itself erupted again as it was ignited into light. Yori felt himself flung mercilessly back as a surge of elemental power bludgeoned him like an avalanche. He recognized the erratic pulse of sheer energy as the same thing that had destroyed the haiden but knew in his very marrow that this one wasn't random.

Unable to help the whimper, Yori rubbed at stinging eyes, trying to spark vision back into them. His nerves stopped crying with pain, allowing him to gather his senses enough to realize that he had been flung onto his side. Panicking, he looked down but the bucket of water was still cradled in his arms and somehow preserving a good fifth of what he had gathered. On the other side of the bucket, the kunoichi was beginning to stir, her skin a blistering red as if she had been burned by the sun.

Yori looked to where not-Mira was and where the masked men had been. The former stood there, eyes still shut as blood and bits of flesh and innards licked at her skin and burrowed into her hair. The latter were those bits of gore coating her, forming a shallow crimson puddle around her, as well as those pieces hanging from the trees. Not-Mira remained there, expressionless as her shoulder twitched in an inhuman spasm.

The only thing that told him they had a chance – that they could get the_ real_ Mira back – was the lone tear trekking its way down her cheek, washing away the red. He wasn't sure what filled him then. He had always felt death's presence around him, clinging to him throughout his sickly life. Maybe that's why instead of backing away from the girl – the girl who had become an embodiment of death – he ran towards her. Maybe it was just fate: maybe his life had always been leading to this point, his courage and strength being spared for this one act that terrified him the most. An act that had him leaping over the corpses of men far better and far stronger than him as he battled wave after wave of increasing pressure to stand before the girl, the words of the harae's chant racing out of his mouth.

Yori threw the salt at her, and as it bounced against her skin another pulse of power arced away from her, punching him onto his back. But he wasn't dead. He took encouragement from that, knowing that upon taking their vessel, no Kami would allow another to force them out. Especially not this one.

_Mira must be fighting! _he thought, lurching back to his feet, unused adrenaline shielding him from the pain of roughshod joints. Yori grabbed the bucket and threw the cleansing water over her, shouting the last lines _"__-only__ after__ we purify ourselves of all negativity, impurities, faults and restore ourselves to what we are meant to be!"_

The girl stood there, the blood running in watery rivulets off her face to reveal reddening, blistering skin beneath. She made a face, a twitch really, like she always did when Azuumi-chan told her to take a bath. He was sure it was her, having battled to the surface, having subdued and exorcised the kami. "Mira?" Yori called, stepping forward.

The girl opened her eyes. Eyes whose irises should've been as dark as chocolate. Eyes which should've had irises to begin with. Instead, they were pitch-black orbs. Orbs which seemed to stare out at all of existence at once despite something within them focusing on his frail, weak form. Then the Kami spoke.

_SHE IS ME_, It said, the words shattering Yori's consciousness.

The priest scrabbled at his skull, falling to his knees before the kami as he accepted the full embrace of a death he had simply shouldered away all his life. His blood expanded within him, almost like his spirit was bursting free from his flesh, finally freed of the rotting cage in which it had been imprisoned. Within the fractured remains of his psyche, Yori's last conscious thought were Its words:

_BUT I AM NOT HER_.


	38. Chapter 38

Akio clutched at his temples as the aftershocks of chakra barreled through him. The pain was blinding, deafening, _numbing. _He let a ragged breath fall from his lips as he embraced that last, strange gift of agony. As long as the pain remained, he couldn't comprehend things, couldn't _feel _what had happened. The body was selfish like that. As long as it was in torment, everything else just faded into the background. And that's why he grabbed onto it – that suffering that wrenched apart his skull. As long as it remained there, he couldn't truly realize what he'd lost. Couldn't truly recognize what was happening. It was a trick the Mist had taught him a long time ago. An old addict, he latched onto this tortured solace, greedily wrapping himself in it so he could forget whose blood dripped from him.

And who had put it there.

Eyes narrowed yet stinging, he could make out the other shinobi and wolves similarly struggling to regain themselves, struggling to make sense of what had just happened, what they had just heard. But of them all, only Akio was close to comprehending the truth of what was happening.

Akio straightened arthritic knees and stared towards the thing which had taken on the blood-drenched guise of a little girl. A vision of the past flickered before his eyes, of the night Mira had returned from the hunt. But this wasn't deer's blood. No. He couldn't help the tremor in his hands as he watched the crimson gore fall from her flesh like stuffed leeches. Something in his chest seized as he took in this shade – this mockery of the Mira he knew. Tightening his embrace on his pain, his emotions drifted away, replaced by the underlying rock of rationality. His old training took hold of him then and when he opened his eyes, he cast aside the man he had pretended to be – the priest he had tried to become – and he accepted his mission.

Twin black flames were rekindled as Akio lowered his chin, his eyes stripping his target's defenses bare. The girl hadn't moved. The wound on its shoulder leaked less blood than it should: its heartbeat was weak. The stillness of the chest, the paling of the lips: it wasn't breathing. The kami had only one interest and that didn't include keeping its host alive.

But the host had other plans it seemed. There, at the base of her neck. His eyes flared as he caught sight of it. Beneath the sheen of scarlet, he could see its skin begin to bubble and blister, to begin to fall away like ash just like it had that night so long ago. Akio knew that it meant the same thing as it did then: Mira was fighting back.

_The harae must've weakened the kami's hold_, he considered, trying and failing to make the thought cold and rational. Again, his obsidian gaze fell onto her immobile chest. _She only has a few minutes left. _His lips twitched as he turned towards the other edge of the clearing, towards where the kami's black gaze was ignoring the entirety of existence to focus. Towards where _she _had fallen to her knees.

With a strange burbling shrieking, Habu was ripping out chunks of her own hair as the pain drove her to the edge of whatever sanity she had left. Her form shimmered as red chakra – so concentrated as to have become visible – began to bubble from her flesh. Her too-white skin began to shine under an oily sheen, that strange slime-like substance beginning to leak from her flesh. It dripped from her, pooling around her to corrode the grass with a faint, hungry hiss.

He knew what this meant. The bijū within Habu was rousing now, awakening like a predator who sensed another invading its territory. But just as before, Habu's flesh was just barely able to contain the overflow of chakra. He remembered the first time she had writhed and thrashed as her sinew and mind succumbed to the bijū.

It had fully formed then, taking over her body to become the sickly, slug-like creature known as the Six Tails. But he hadn't been afraid then, at least, not at first. Despite many deaths, the Six Tails was considered to be the gentlest of the bijū, but after the transfer the jinchūriki had become someone – _something_ – else entirely. It was after the first rampage, after scores of shinobi lay dead or dying, that the Mizukage had given him his last mission: eliminate the threat to the Mist, and kill Habu.

He supposed it should've been funny that even after all these years, it seemed like his mission hadn't changed.

But as he watched his old student, he noticed it. There was something _off _this time – something in how the crimson chakra seemed to pool along the kunoichi's backside, seemed to stretch out and _reach_ for the woods, seemed to try and escape. But the way Habu looked towards the girl – with eyes just starting to slit to reveal a void of bottomless hate – he knew the jinchūriki at least had no intention of running away.

And neither did he. Not anymore.

An acrid smoke filled the air, billowing up from as the ooze trudged like lava as it disintegrated the grass in a sickly, tired fashion. Akio wrinkled his nose as he smelled the familiar scent, hoping that his old immunity from the poison still existed. He took in a last clean breath and glanced around, noting how the Leaf and Mist had gained their senses and were now backing away as the corrosive cloud grew thicker. Then, at some command, all of the shinobi retreated back into the woods in a silent blur, the wolves slunk back into the shadows.

But the kami who had taken hold of Mira made no attempt at such retreat. It didn't even blink as the rust-colored alkali snapped at its eyes, the black orbs not even allowed to tear up in defense. A snarl ripping out of his throat, a creak wrenching out of his hip, Akio started forward just as a grip tightened around his shoulder and yanked him back.

"She's not breathing," a voice murmured in his ear.

Akio turned, already knowing who it was. Though he had sensed him, his eyes and reactions were too aged to catch the flash of blonde as the Leaf jōnin appeared at his side.

"The poison won't affect her," the shinobi said, his eyes as sharp and cold as ice. "Let's go."

Even if he had wanted to, his reflexes would've been too slow to prevent the Body Flicker Technique. The jōnin's fingers dug into his wasted muscle and the shinobi shun-shinned them away from the clearing, about a yard into the forest and away from the expanding smoke.

Akio grunted as his hip gave a slight pop, even the ricochet of regaining his balance a bit too much for him now. The Yellow Flash released him, a fraction of concern on his face stifled by the familiar look of disgust-tinged suspicion reserved only for those in the Bingo Book. Akio threw back his shoulders as he leaned against a tree for support while the Leaf captain took his own position behind another trunk. From there, Akio watched him fix his blue eyes on the clearing and its combatants. Akio stared at the man, his nose wrinkling but he still couldn't help it. The way the Leaf captain held himself, the way his eyes darted from Mira's wound to Habu's bristling, Akio knew the jōnin was worth his reputation as one of the most feared shinobi of the new generations.

"Sensei, what should we do?" came a whisper that quavered between a child's squeak and an adult's burden. Akio turned to see that young kunoichi against a tree opposite of his own, the goggled shinobi leaning against the bark next to her. Both were flushed, scratched, and sweaty from battle, and they panted in the brief reprieve. Both were staring up at their captain, and both had fear in their eyes.

"She killed her senpai," the girl continued, "and Kakashi-kun hasn't-"

Her voice choked, unable to say the last words. The boy frowned beside her, muttering something under his breath, but the tension in his frame betrayed the same deep panic. Akio's brow furrowed as he looked away from the sentimentality, questioning again how the Leaf had attained such military power.

Their teacher turned to them, his tone calm, even. "He reported in a few minutes ago that he had become separated from her by a fog. I instructed him to keep tracking her before we were ambushed, and I lost connection with him entirely." He reached behind his ear and removed the overloaded device, tucking it into a pouch in his vest as he continued, "Kakashi-kun can handle himself. He is a shinobi of the Leaf, Rin-chan."

Immediately, the girl straightened, the wetness in her eyes drying. The boy's frown remained, but he too relaxed even if just slightly. Akio ground his teeth, annoyed that they were wasting time on such trivialities. They needed a plan. They needed it fast. He was pleased then when Rin spoke again, her words were cool, efficient: she had returned to being a kunoichi.

"What should we do, Sensei?" she murmured, her brows lowered.

Minato returned to his breakdown of the clearing where the two combatants were still yet to make a move. The blonde hairs on the back of his neck rose as their chakra built in the air, catching the faint light filtering through the trees and taking on a pale sort of glow.

Not shifting his focus, the jōnin spoke, "Noburu-san, how did you stop her the last time?"

The old man hunched his thick shoulders, his old name branding his mind once more. "The prayer beads," he muttered, his voice churning like gravel. "I don't know how it works, but my best guess is it's like those wooden seals I've heard a Hokage of yours used to use, though I have a feeling this is the original inspiration." He turned his black eyes to Mira's neck, seeing how the bubbling had travelled up her neck and was now flaking away pieces of her chin. "It was around her neck, but I don't know what could've happened to it. Like other seals, it's not something she could take off herself."

The young shinobi turned on Akio, his eyes flashing even behind the goggles. "Why didn't you tell us this earlier?" the boy accused. "We're your allies."

Akio ignored him, briefly wondering how someone so naïve could still exist in this world. His own cynical suspicions were confirmed as the jōnin cut in, "Kakashi-kun has it in his possession."

"Baka!" the ex-priest snarled. "Well, if he's to fix the mess he started, he better come with them. The manifestation is too far gone for even the harae to fully work. All we've managed to do is buy us some time before the kami regains full control."

He heard the boy scoff, "'Kami'?" but he let out a small yelp as the kunoichi elbowed him.

"Don't be rude," she hissed under her breath. "They just use different names than 'bijū' and 'jinchūriki'."

"I'm not so sure that's what we're dealing with anymore," Minato murmured. Caught by surprise, the old Mist shinobi stared at him, wondering where this change of opinion originated as the Yellow Flash jerked his chin towards the girl. "That wound should be healed by now if she was a true jinchūriki. This changes things." His eyes flashed to Akio – a pair of twin, icy daggers aimed to gouge out his own, beady eyes. "Care to explain?"

Akio met his challenge easily, his dark brows forming a smooth line beneath his wrinkles. The way the Leaf jōnin was looking at him had him tonguing the gap in his tooth where his old suicide capsule had been. Realizing this, he yanked his tongue away and shoved away that deeply-engrained tenet to never reveal information to the enemy.

Originally, he thought it was lucky that, on that night of the Kagura, Habu had descended into the first stages of her Tailed Beast form in the village. He was sure the villagers had confused the two and called for the Leaf shinobi with a report of a loose bijū: that initial reporting error was what threw the Leaf off in the first place.

Still, he had known their suspicions of Mira being a jinchūriki would never have lasted long. There were just too many differences – subtle, but there. The only other reasonable explanation was something no shinobi would ever accept. In order for them to acknowledge it, they would have to believe in the supernatural, and he knew personally how hard it was to convince shinobi otherwise: it had taken him a lifetime. But if it was to save Mira now-

Crumpling his lips, the words gurgled out of his mouth, the bubbles of his distrust and uncertainty popping at the end of every word. "'Jinchūriki,'" he began. "Disgusting word. Remember what that means? Eh, Leaf shinobi?" His eyes narrowed to slits and his lips curled in disgust. "Literally, its translates to the 'Power of the Human Sacrifice'. You take someone – someone begging for their lives or their children's lives – you take them, and you force one of the worst fates imaginable upon them by shoving a demon into their very flesh." His glare flickering, his voice faltering, he jerked his chin towards a still-writhing Habu. "That's what she is. A sacrifice. A jinchūriki."

He turned his dark eyes onto the figure across from Habu. Onto the girl still floating inches above the grass, her eyes blacker than the depths of Jigoku Cave. "Now imagine, if you took the 'sacrifice' out of that equation." He paused for a moment only to snort, "There's no Tailed Beast – no vile demon – forced inside of her. A jinchūriki is only a bastardized version of what Mira truly is: a vessel for the kamigami – a miko." He fixed the Leaf team with a stark glare. "Where do you think they got the idea to create jinchūriki in the first place?"

The younger two took a moment to catch on. It was the kunoichi who gasped in realization first while the other gaped, "Wait, what?" The girl turned to him and quickly explained until the boy murmured an "Oh!" and turned an inquisitive eye on to Mira, his brow arching. He shifted his goggles on his nose and muttered, "Then is she a pseudo-jinchūriki? I thought they all had died."

The girl winced and shook her head. Akio's expression fell as the longest speech he had given in years had fallen on deaf – or rather stupid – ears. "Baka," he chastised under his breath, angling himself towards the clearing.

"Whatever she is," the blonde captain quickly shifted topics, "the objective remains the same: protect Mira from the Mist." He tapped a calloused finger along the hilt of his specially-forged kunai, stratagems almost visibly flickering behind his pupils. "And keep Mira from killing the Mist jinchūriki. I'm not sure why she's so intent on it, but we have to stop her."

"What? Why should we protect that creepy lady?" the boy asked, his creased brow shifting his goggles enough to throw a glare into Akio's eyes.

The old man fixed the boy with a black, beady scowl but the jōnin didn't reveal any irritation as he explained to the goggled shinobi, "Bijū reincarnate after their jinchūriki is killed. Though not always, they tend to show up in the area where that happened. We are not going to let the Six Tails run rampant in the Land of Fire. Even now, we have to try and prevent the jinchūriki from losing control entirely. We don't want another town destroyed in a rampage."

"The jinchūriki of the Six Tails has a habit of that," Akio informed, looking from his ex-student to the jōnin. "The last jinchūriki died prematurely, and we didn't have any infant with a compatible chakra nature. Habu was the best option, but she was already an adult so she hasn't been able to acclimate to it. While she's able to handle the Six Tails, she doesn't have complete control. As for Mira-" He looked at the girl. "Her training hasn't been completed either."

The Leaf captain nodded. "Well, the Mist jinchūriki is our second priority for now. We need to restrain Mira first. While Kakashi-kun has one of my seals with him, it's better that we wait the few minutes for him to track her back here. The way this is going, we'll need to act fast."

Akio needed no explanation as to why the shinobi was hesitant to leave the scene even if it was for a fraction of a second. Habu was frothing at the mouth, straining with all of her might against the creature within her to maintain consciousness, maintain control. But that's not to what the Yellow Flash was referring.

His attention was yanked like a taut string onto Mira. As the girl maintained her own struggle of supremacy with the kami, her skin continued to boil and slough off, unable to contain the power raging inside of her. Akio could barely tell whether the scarlet enveloping her was another's blood or her own, but barely cared as he felt the pressure building in the air began to hammer at existence. Just as it had happened in the village, chakra – so concentrated as to be a blinding white – began to dart out of her like electric tendrils and the grass around her began to wriggle, the rocks rise from the earth, quaking as the energy began to disintegrate them.

Akio turned an appraising eye onto the back of that blonde head and found that begrudging respect deepen for the man who wasn't even flinching. Frowning at his own admiration, Akio lowered his chin and muttered, "Chakra can't harm her. Doesn't even leave a scratch. Don't waste time on any ninjutsu or genjutsu. Figured that out the hard way."

The Leaf captain nodded. "Figured as much when their seal was too weak to have an effect on her." He leaned forward, his weight settling into the balls of his feet. "So I guess that leaves one option."

Akio nodded under a glower. "She won't even notice you unless you get between her and Habu. Physical attacks are the best option, so rely on jujitsu and speed to try and distract her from Habu. She's not even conscious enough to protect herself so don't go for the kill, but keep your wits about you. You can't let her get a lock on you, or you'll go the same way as the others. As of now, the only one quick enough-" Akio cut off as he fixed the Leaf jōnin with a black, beady eye and dipped his chin.

Minato-san let out a breath, a little smile coiling his lips making him look like he was some kid psyching himself up before a game of tag. "All right. Ryujin Formation. We need to stall these two until Kakashi-kun arrives with the wooden seal. Obito-kun, Rin-chan, you take-"

"I'll take Habu," Akio cut across. "I know her style the best. I should, since I taught her everything she knows. And I should still be immune enough to that acid coming off of her to be able to work in close range for a few minutes." His mouth set in a grim line. "Besides, we need to settle a few things."

Minato paused for a moment but seeing Akio's clenched jaw, could only nod. "Rin-chan, Obito-kun offer support when you can, but focus on the other Mist shinobi." He turned a bright gaze back onto the person who seemed a bit more human than the Bingo Book had described. "I suppose you should pray and ask for the kamigami to be on our side today."

"Never presume to know the kamigami," Akio answered, shifting his weight to his toes.

"On my signal," murmured Minato-san, storing away that small good-humored smile. A fierce expression sharpened his eyes as he spread an array of marked kunai in his left palm. The others readied themselves. "Three. Two-"

The earth erupted as if a comet had struck. Akio was thrown back, barely able to recognize that the source of energy had come from Mira. Unable to contain the power anymore, the chakra burst from her, fracturing the air in blinding arcs. As the static faded from his vision, he managed to see Mira grasping at her throat. It looked like she was convulsing before he realized the girl was dragging in breath after breath as desperately as if she had nearly drowned. The black film over her eyes peeled back, just revealing the shadow of brown beneath.

But there was no moment for joy. In a heartbeat, Habu was above her, a hand weaponless save for the thick red coat that made her limb appear like some sort of fiery club.

"Ike!" Minato spurred, disappearing without a trace as Akio launched forward, the two genin fanning out beside him.

As Akio sprinted forward, his old heart pounding, his limbs shaking off the rust of age, he found his eyes locked with those dim irises of Mira. He could see her lips moving. Though no sound came out, he could still hear the words in her voice, could read them as they fell from her lips.

"Run," she begged. "Run!"

And just as the Yellow Flash appeared beside her, he saw those chocolate eyes flicker. Brown. Black. Brown. Black. Brown-

Black.

A blur of color marked the Yellow Flash's materialization above Mira. His form hung in mid-air, his leg cocked back. Then his golden hair whipped to the side as he wrenched his torso, delivering a vicious kick to the side of Habu's skull. Snarling, the jinchūriki managed to block the heavy blow – her speed and strength amplified by the first traces of a chakra coat.

Forced to abandon her attack on Mira, Habu took advantage of the jōnin's attack, exploiting its strength to power her own leap backwards. She landed three feet away, her crimson chakra crunching into the dirt like flaming claws. Her sparse hair barely bounced at the movement, clinging low to her scalp like a mottled black fungus. And beneath crinkled strands of that fungus, her eyes bulged, glinting a feverish sheen as they darted between shinobi and miko.

"Chikushō," the cuss crunched between Akio's gnashing teeth. He had launched into the clearing as well and was trying to keep all of the players in sight, but his eyes were watering in that thick, poisonous cloud. He strained his vision, managing to catch the Leaf jōnin releasing a short, controlled breath only to begin weaving an intricate pattern with his fingers.

Minato murmured an indecipherable snarl of consonants, sparking a jutsu which caused a fresh wind to sweep through the clearing and dispel the acidic mist. He blinked, allowing a breath to slip through his lips, his chest rising in a grateful swell. Then he truly began.

In a fluid blur, he unholstered a marked kunai from a sheath along his calf and spun it in his fingers, both correcting his grip and cutting off the bit of cloth snapping and sizzling from the Six Tail's alkaline ooze. The shinobi then braced himself between jinchūriki and miko, his weapon primed towards Habu even before the amputated fabric had hit the dirt.

Habu blinked, swaying low in her crouch, watching how the jōnin shifted with her, the glint of his kunai following her like an eye. An appreciative little grin cracked the sallow skin of her lips as she let her eyes fall to the girl behind him.

Akio followed her gaze for a fraction of a second – still enough time for his chest to clench. Mira lay there, crumpling in on herself like a paper ignited at its center. Her knuckles were pale as she dug at the nape of her neck, her nails biting through flushed, seething skin. Her spine quaked as her breath grew more and more ragged, her body's last scream dwindling to silence. The air crackled once more as raw energy condensed in the clearing, the trees shifting and groaning despite the jōnin's jutsu having ended long ago.

"Chikushō," Akio muttered, backing slowly away as the ground began to quake.

But neither shinobi of the Leaf nor Mist moved. Neither of them dared. Even though both felt it about to happen again, they couldn't risk taking their eyes off the other. The hair on the back of Minato's neck stood at attention, but the Leaf captain couldn't afford to glance back – not when facing a Tailed Beast. 'Never turn your back on a jinchūriki': it was a lesson the Academy didn't need to teach its students – most had learned it from the stories their parents told as they put them to bed.

It was then that the earth shattered beneath their feet, the weight of the air too much for it to bear. Minato leapt into the air just as rocks both collapsed and erupted beneath him, around him, their jagged points rending the space where his flesh had been. The jinchūriki saw her opening. She launched forward, her movements so fast they were impossible to trace. She contorted between the rocks rupturing all around her, heedless of the cuts that welled on her skin; as quickly as jagged stone sliced her skin, the shallow wounds had healed. A harbinger of death, one purpose drove her, and her scarlet eyes didn't shift from the shinobi as she slammed to a halt below him. Spittle dripping from her grin, she gathered herself and-

"Suiton: Water Whip!" Akio's hands had already forming the seals as he planted his stance and shouted the words. A jet of water erupted from his hand, becoming a cord thicker and stronger than steel – a pointed whip that barreled towards Habu. The ex-shinobi had lost track of how many times the force of his ninjutsu had skewered an unsuspecting opponent, and if he had still been in his prime, the whip might've at least been quick enough to wrap around her neck.

With an annoyed scoff, Habu dodged the assault with a sharp pirouette. The wan light of a clouded moon caught strangely against her form, and Akio felt his heart stutter. For a moment, it felt like he had woken from some nightmare to find himself in another sparring session with his old student. He could see the girl he had trained, could see her pigtails splaying in the wind, the exuberance of a child blazing from her like a beacon. But then the bijū's chakra flared brighter and shredded the vision before him.

Akio jolted to his senses just in time to recognize that the crimson energy was slicing through his ninjutsu and charging directly at him. Grunting, he managed to dive away at the last second as he heard Habu snarl, an inhuman ferocity cracking her voice, "I know your tricks, old man."

Akio straightened. From the corner of his vision, he asserted that the Leaf captain could now attend to Mira: the jōnin's fingers were primed for his next jutsu as he murmured something to the girl, trying to draw her back. However, the Flash's words were drowned out by the ringing of metal against metal and the sudden resurgence of nightmarish growls and snapping fangs. Akio calculated that the wolves must have rejoined the Leaf genin as they met the remaining Mist shinobi. He let out a breath, glad that their stratagem was underway. Now, all that was left was his part of the mission.

When Akio faced his target, he saw her pupils had fully narrowed to slits. The wrinkles on his brow deepened. The stories may have been different for the Mist, but the warning was the same: never turn your back on a jinchūriki. They were unpredictable – a slave to their fickle impulses. Especially when they had reached this state. It seemed like the kunoichi had completely forgotten Mira: her eyes, nearly blinding from the hatred seething there, were trained to every movement of her old sensei. Akio knew he would be able to hold her attention without much difficulty. He could buy Mira some time.

The nerves along the back of Akio's hands crackled – something they had always done before he met another shinobi in direct battle, something he had long since forgotten. But there was no time to fully register this fragment of his youth. In these last moments, his mind raced through the dozens of paths the fight could take. _Buy a few minutes_, he thought, pulling out the borrowed kunai, its handle worn from smaller hands. Another memory flashed then. A little chirping voice saying_, 'It's still too dull! Sensei, here, can you hone it?'_ He gritted his teeth and shifted his grip on the weapon, staring across the swath of cracked earth to the kunoichi who once owned that voice.

He settled lower in his stance, his hips groaning, and etched out one of the last outcomes of this fight. _If it comes down to it, save Mira at all costs._ His chest tightened again then, barely allowing him to breathe. _Complete your final mission: kill Habu._

As if reading his mind, the kunoichi curled her red-cloaked fists and accepted his challenge. She was twenty feet away when Akio blinked: when he opened his eyes, her fist was hurling towards his face. He jerked back, her crimson chakra just missing his jaw as he fell low onto his left hand, shifted his weight, and launched a kick at her kneecaps. The jinchūriki leapt before he was even an inch away only to plummet back to earth, her left fist falling like a meteor straight at his chest. He flipped over to catch himself on his right hand, rolling away so her iron knuckles crashed into the dirt, sending a shockwave of mud into his eyes.

Engrained muscle memory ripped Akio's forearm around, the kunai in his hand careening towards the kunoichi's exposed bicep, the blade starved for the muscles which gave her the use of her arm. But it was also memory that stopped him just as blade was about to pierce flesh. Blinded, he couldn't see the creature before him – the half-crazed jinchūriki shrouded in that blood-like chakra. His mind only showed him his protégé – a girl of twelve grinning despite the grueling hours of another sparring session.

The kunai froze, and Akio was forced to roll away to avoid a savage thrust of her knee. Grimacing, he felt the bijū's corrosive slime splatter onto him and begin to snap at his skin, but his acquired immunity still seemed to hold even after all these years. He swiped the mud from his eyes to see Habu hop back into a hunter's crouch. Every movement seemed to cost the kunoichi more and more willpower as the bijū's chakra coiled around her, bunching at her side like some sort of flame trying to escape the wind.

_Like the bijū is straining to yank her into the woods,_ he considered, realizing the latent opportunity. Contemplating how he could use this to his advantage, he flipped upwards into a crouch.

The action was simple – something he had done since he had begun training as a toddler. But age – that thief of all things – truly betrayed him then. He didn't feel it, but he heard it: the sickening pop as his right knee cried out its last. Habu heard it too. As he fell forward, Habu's face filled his vision and knuckles hammered into his jugular. He managed to tighten his muscles at the last moment, but he was still heaving to catch his breath as he twisted on an ankle and spun away.

He gripped his neck, the bijū's mucus as intense as if someone had set the skin alight, but that pain wasn't the source of his panting. His weak attempt at misdirection was pointless: the kunoichi knew the extent of his injuries. He could see it in her smirk as she slowly straightened up and let her hands fall to her sides.

Slowly, she began to wind her way towards him. He attempted again to stand, but his right knee buckled inwardly under his weight. Snarling a cuss, he caught himself and shifted onto his left leg. He raised the kunai once more but knew what this meant: when his tendon had snapped, so did his fate's red string. He could almost see the unknown stretching before him, but he had seen it for a long time. Shinobi were trained to sense another on the verge of crossing over that horizon; this was only new in that the view seemed so much closer. Despite the unsteadiness, despite the pain, he stood tall and faced it.

Habu, kunoichi that she was, was drunk from the taste of his approaching death. She stretched her bleeding lips into a leer as she strolled forward. She lunged one way, and Akio instinctively jolted to the other in response. The motion sent him stumbling as his leg gave way. Just as he seemed to gain his balance, Habu lunged the other direction, sending him struggling again.

The kunoichi snickered – the sound some unnatural concoction of a rattling hiss. She kept toying with him, dangling him like some sort of puppet, only to abruptly grow tired of the game. With a flick of her wrist, the bijū's chakra shot out and slammed into his chest, pinning him against an upturned rock. He coughed up blood as his ribs cracked beneath the pressure, the kunai falling from his crushed grip.

Yet Habu did nothing more except stride closer and closer, her grin screaming wider and wider. When she was a breath's caress away, she stopped and stretched out her scarred, sallow hands. Akio tried to raise his hands to scrabble at her flesh, but the crimson chakra kept his hands pinned to the rock. Her maddened eyes locked with his, she entwined her fingers around his neck, and she squeezed. Her blackened, jagged nails nipped blood from his skin as her grip squeezed the life from his flesh.

It wasn't that sound faded for Akio, but that his heartbeat was growing deafening. He could hear it pound, feel it reverberating within his flesh – a sensation he had ignored all his life until these final moments when it demanded recognition for its ultimate crescendo. But there was no point. Soon that sound would grow so deafening as to create silence, and in that silence he would forever fall.

His vision began to flicker, but he didn't dare close his eyes. He kept them open to catch the last glimpses of a world he hated. Of a cruel world where war was the only constant. Where the burning passion of love fed on rotting logs of pain and death until the flames burned black with hatred and revenge. For most of his life, he had only continued this cycle, cut down more putrid logs for the inferno that engulfed the land of shinobi. But still, in these last few moments he couldn't help but strain for the last glimpse of his greatest failure of all, hoping that in these final moments he would see a miracle in the stare of those twin flaming pits – a miracle in which those flames would ebb away, releasing both killer and killed from the chains of their pasts. A miracle that would let him die in peace.

His vision began to blur, colors leaching away, leaving behind shifting lines of black and white. But still he strained to see, strained to find his absolution in her triumph. But the world around him was fading, shifting, as life's visage slipped away. Everything was falling away. Everything except-

Something – no, someone – was approaching. A figure, darkened by the light of life he was leaving but ensconced in an otherworldly white energy – a white that seemed to stretch even off into the abyss just beyond the veil of life. _Shinigami_, he thought, greeting it, reaching out to it.

The figure tilted its head as if in greeting, and the world faded to white. But it didn't go quietly.

There was a ringing in his ears, a sharp pressure pounding both against and within his skull. It felt as if someone had turned his bones to metal and rung him with a sledgehammer. His vague sense of self began to sharpen, the feeling of physicality returning to him. With it was a sense that greedy tongues of fire were slurping at his skin, and, for a moment, he thought that Habu had decided to coat him with that acidic slime, ensuring his end would be long and tortuous.

Groaning, he peeled open what he vaguely remembered to be eyelids. The world was still there, the ruptured earth looking as if it had begun sobbing as a hard rain started to fall. But Habu was gone. In her stead-

He blinked, his eyes focusing on the figure he had greeted as shinigami, onto Mira who stared at him. Her eyes once more flickering between chocolate and ebony, between relief and apathy. She turned from him before he could see how much of the girl truly remained, but he knew that the one in control was someone – some_thing_ – that had only one thing on its mind.

The miko turned its eyes onto the far edge of the clearing, and he followed its gaze. There Habu lay broken against a splintered trunk. The force of the impact that had flung her there had blood trailing out of her mouth and nose, but the stream was already thinning – the jinchūriki healing itself as always.

The miko cocked its head, its child's feet dangling once more a few inches above the grass. It made no noise as it began to move towards the jinchūriki, a strange wind beginning to stir. Akio struggled to rise but ended up watching her go, blanching as he saw what was happening in the girl's shadow. It reminded him of what he had caught Mira was always attempting to do, but this was so much more. For as soon as her shade swept over the blades of grass, their stems turned an emerald so brilliant that they seemed to give off a wan glow just as they soared upward and upward, their tips reaching out to touch the kami's feet; but as they neared, their color mottled to an odorous brown, falling over dead only for the process to begin anew. When the miko's shadow had left them, the grass had returned to the same stage as when her shadow had first fallen over them – making Akio wonder if this all was just in his mind.

This was the creature approaching Habu and this was the creature that set Habu shrieking in pain as if her very nerves were being flayed one by one. There was no outward sign of what was happening – the kami made no noise, no movement. It was just merely staring in her direction. The only thing that told Akio something horrific was occurring was by this innate sense of dread growing in his marrow, the way his hair stood on end as if sensing an approaching storm.

Crimson chakra began pouring out of Habu then as she shrieked. Her eyes crimson orbs. Her pupils narrowing to slits.

"No!" Akio raked out a gasp, a crooked hand outstretched. He felt a wetness on his cheeks as he braced himself up on his elbows. "Kami!" he called, but his quiet cry was swept away in the wind. He shifted onto his palms but his hand slipped in the softening mud. "Stop! Mira! Sto-"

"Katon: Great Fireball Jutsu!" The world just in front of Mira erupted into a wall of flame. The miko jerked back in surprise, and for a moment, Akio thought Mira had regained control, but a flash of jet pupils revealed otherwise. A strange short of shriek, like some animal trying to talk, came from her throat as her eyes raked towards the source of the jutsu.

The goggled Leaf genin stood there, his hands cupped around his mouth. Lit by his own flame, his visage caught the light too hard, making the boy look ethereal. The sweat and rain matted his black hair, clinging to his skin to create a thick coat that caught the light like oil. Puckered lines of cut skin marred his cheeks and exposed torso, but the skin itself was too pallid, making the first stages of bruising along his arms and knuckles all the more marked. Though he maintained the jutsu, his hands were quivering, his posture drooping: the boy was on the verge of collapse.

Without warning, a Mist ANBU sprinted towards the boy, and Akio jerked upwards but fell as his palm slipped in the mud, his shout dying in his throat. When he looked up again, dirt oozing off his chin, he expected only more death. Instead, the swirl-masked ANBU stood next to the boy, his hands a blur of symbols as he shouted, "Suiton: Water Formation Wall!"

The kami hissed as a wall of water burst around it – the impenetrable force of its tsunami-like waves rupturing the ground as it enclosed the miko in a circle. The swell extinguished the weakening flames of the genin's ninjutsu, and the boy fell forward with a grateful gasp, his bloodless knuckles clenched over quaking knees. He had reached the end of his chakra reserves, and his body was entering that near-paralytic state.

Wondering if he had truly lost his mind, Akio ignored this unheard of truce and gnashed his teeth. "Baka!" he snarled through the dirt lining his tongue. "Get out of there! Now!"

The boy turned his head, the air he heaved in and out of his chest forming a mist along his goggles, confusion marring the exhausted grin on his haggard face. Akio lifted himself up, the question flashing through his mind once more at how the Leaf could have become so powerful and shouted, "_Run_!"

The ANBU, keeping his eyes locked on his jutsu, affirmed, "Get going! I've got thi-"

Akio blinked. The shinobi was gone. Just _gone_. There was no eruption of gore, no screams of pain; he simply vanished as if plucked from existence with only a strange sense of a spatial void marking his passing – a void as evident as if a tooth had just disappeared. The prison of water collapsed, exposing the kami, who floated there, its skin furiously bubbling as water dripped from it, its raven gaze not having shifted even a fraction from the boy.

The goggled boy stumbled backward, but the kami was already moving towards him. Another inhuman snarl ripped from its lips as the miko turned towards the genin, storm-ruptured waves of hatred rolling from it. For some strange reason, it seemed like the kami recognized the boy, and for some reason, it registered him as a larger threat on its list then even Habu who lay there, twitching as the bijū's chakra yearned for the woods.

Akio glanced around, wondering why the Leaf captain wasn't acting. That's when he saw the yellow-haired jōnin leaning against a trunk, his face pale, the Leaf kunoichi bending over his leg. Sweat shone off of her forehead as the green medical-nin's glow shone from her hands as she stymied the flow of blood.

Akio glanced toward the goggled kid who had frozen in fear as the kami drifted towards him, its visage as dark as an approaching apocalypse, the earth trembling once more. The boy, meanwhile, had forgotten how to even breathe. The old shinobi found himself scrambling to his feet, slipping from mud and broken body, but he managed to stumble, then shamble, then run forward. The air seemed to warp around the goggled boy, crackling as space itself seemed to crunch inwards on him. At the last moment, Akio leapt forward, shoving the boy free from the kami's lock.

Existence erupted behind them as they tumbled through the dirt. Akio could hear the kami hiss and as he turned, he saw that the miko's flesh was writhing and peeling again even more furiously than before. The black veil over her eyes rippling: just beneath, Mira's consciousness must've managed to gain some control, managed to divert the blow just enough for them to escape.

Akio turned to the genin and snapped, "Get back to the others! I can distract her!"

The boy, trembling, scrambled to his feet, his mouth opening in protest but Akio barked, "Now!"

The genin haphazardly darted towards his comrades, and Akio turned to face an advancing Mira. He could see the kami's attention follow the boy, but he flung his hands wide and snapped, "Kami!"

That seemed to garner the creature's attention. As if interested that something had recognized it for what it was, it swung its gaze lazily back to the old man who wobbled about on one leg. Akio, not expecting that to work, blanched and snapped out, "Kami! Leave your vessel! You're killing her!" But though the kami had turned to him, his words now seemed to have no effect. He frowned, wondering why it was staring at him. Then he realized it was staring _through_ him.

He glanced over his tattered shoulder to see Habu straining, woman's will against bijū's. The chakra cloak around her was thickening, submerging that sallow skin beneath a flood of crackling lava, consuming her body and soul. But still, her white knuckles clenched into the ground, refusing to let the Six Tails take flight.

He turned back to the kami, and could see its intentions rolling behind those black veils. "No," he murmured, shaking his head. His chest tightened. "No!" As the miko began to approach, he backed up, keeping himself between the two.

Just as back then, he couldn't let it happen. Even after all these years, he hadn't really changed. He couldn't let Habu die. Not when he was here. Not when he could do something. He flung his arms to either side, trying to cover her. "I won't let you kill her," he snarled. He could feel his heart batter against his ribs, trying to escape the doom that trotted towards him.

The kami cocked its head but no other expression crossed its face. But suddenly, those black eyes flashed brown and Mira was there – Mira was there reaching forward shrieking, "No!"

His chest seemed to have fully collapsed then: the pain was unbearable. He looked down, seeing a chakra-coated, sallow hand with blackened fingernails punched through his sternum. His lifeblood poured out of him, his heart completely destroyed. As his chin fell onto his chest, he realized his mistake: never turn your back on a jinchūriki.

The air tickled his ear as he heard Habu whisper, "I'll meet you soon in the afterlife, sensei. And I'll kill you there too." As he was falling forward, Mira's eyes went black once more as the human part of her screamed in a rage he had only heard in his nightmares. And the world began to ring louder, burning from color to white to the complete brilliance of a star.

But this eruption of raw power was not the thing which took his life. It wasn't even Habu's final blow. No. His life ended as he accepted himself for what he was: a failure who couldn't even save the people he loved the most. A failure who could see that horizon now clearly. A failure who wouldn't be able to meet another's eyes. No, not for a long time.

As his consciousness faded, he approached the horizon but before he could see what lay beyond, he turned back. Strange as it was, he swore he could see another white-outlined figure running in the distance. _Another shinigami_, he thought before fading into the Beyond. _But how strange that it looks like a wolf._

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Hey my amazing readers! First off, wow. This goes for a long time without my having properly said this, but I was not expecting this level of readership at all. Honestly, I just uploaded this story initially because I needed that extra motivation to keep writing, but I'm so happy people seem to be enjoying it! Yay! Mini-celebration!

Either way, I know my forte doesn't lie with action scenes too much, so hopefully I kept it interesting. I've been reworking this bit for forever because it didn't feel right, but well, hopefully it was entertaining to read! As always, comment if you'd like since that really makes a writer's day and ConCrit is encouraged! Either way, have a great night/day!


	39. Chapter 39

_The Path So Far! _

_Witnessing the death of Akio at the hands of Habu, Mira has succumbed to Izanagi's possession. Consumed by anger and grief, she launches an attack that would destroy her before it killed the jinchūriki. But first, where is the one who removed the beads in the first place? What's been happening to him all this time? Does he even know what he's done?_

_Let's begin! _

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"Ché," Kakashi snipped, unlocking his fingers and yanking back his arms. The genjutsu release had failed along with all the other chakra-based exertions. The mist remained unruffled: an impenetrable wall of cream that clung to him and drowned his senses in its thick, natural concentration of chakra. It should have soothed him that this wasn't a trap of the Mist or the girl: the former would have launched an ambush by this point, the latter didn't have the skill level. Yet he remained anxious and bitter: the knowledge that the enemy had launched an early assault on the shrine kept gnawing at him. While his team fought the enemy, he was just fumbling in the woods.

Kakashi cursed again, the sharp snap of his tongue a whip against his teeth. They had expected the Mist's recognition of the Yellow Flash would compel them to delay any attack in order to summon reinforcements. Sure enough, Obito had caught the dispatched shinobi during his night's watch, but, being the dunce that he was, was tricked by a simple clone. Still, he recovered a copy of the message which was in a code the Leaf had unlocked two weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, it excised any information regarding the girl: if it was intercepted by any other shinobi, it would appear to be a simple call for aid to deal with the famed Leaf jonin. Overall, it afforded them four days of leeway.

At least, it should have. Unfortunately, it appeared that the missing-nin Noburu had been correct in his prediction: the Mist's captain Habu would act hastily and irrationally.

_So the rumors of the Crazed Demon of the Hidden Mist weren't exaggerated after all_, the shinobi considered, hitting the arc of his vault. Instinctively, he cast his limited gaze and spotted a looming shadow in the gloom. The fog spat out the branch like one would the bone of a fish – albeit a fish a hundred times larger than any human. Calibrating his angle, he adjusted his feet and braced for the impact of landing.

Kakashi slammed against the wood, purposefully emitting a soft smack to signal the ninken to stop as well. Even with the proper levying his weight, the slap of heels against bark was essentially imperceptible as if muffled by the too-dense haze. Not only that, but he had to truly dig into the wood, latching himself on physically rather than simply fixing chakra to his soles. That realization – occurring when he nearly plummeted to his death – had been his first warning that something was off in these woods.

Despite the jarring of momentum, he fluidly shifted into a low crouch at the base of the branch. He glared at the blanketing shroud but accepted it: it wasn't a shinobi's duty to question but to adapt. He opened his mouth to call the hounds back only to pause as he heard the faint clicking of claws settling around him. Scowl loosening at the dogs' marked improvement, he slid out a kunai and scored a deep gash in the wood. Golden sap pulsed out of the wound, trickling through the furrows of scaly bark. Again, he caught himself frowning at the gunk that seemed to shimmer upon exposure.

_Just a trick of the mist, _he dismissed, flicking off a splinter that clung to his kunai. He sheathed the weapon just as a soft padding came from his right. He looked over to see Pakkun trot into view – an apparition though only three feet away. The eerie effect was only compounded by the dog's rich timbre whose rasp had grown more engrained in recent years.

"Boss," the pug called as he settled on his haunches, his wrinkles more rutted than usual as he pawed at his snout. "Got nothing even up here. The fog is as dense as it was at ground level. So wh-" He froze, his nose crumpling before he let out a great sneeze, his ears bouncing at the motion. Glowering, he finished, "What's our next step?"

The shinobi dipped his chin to look at the mark he had gouged. Though crude, it was the most efficient method as he lacked spare tags and didn't trust any jutsu in this mist. Even if it was specific protocol, he couldn't help the prick of annoyance at its impracticality in this situation. A practice to help alert to backtracking, he knew he would never see it again: not being an idiot, he was leading them straight.

Still, he chastised himself for not suspecting the haze earlier. The instigator for why he started tracing his path was that he had passed by seemingly identical moss-laced trees that had fallen to lean against their fellows. The second time he leapt past it – recognizing a too-similar jumble of splayed roots – he stopped to turn back and assess whether it was the same pine. Naturally, it had disappeared.

_This place isn't obeying any logic,_ he groused, his thoughts interrupted by a whine off to his left.

"This stuff is making me nauseous!" Ūhei groaned.

"Yeah," yapped Bisuke. "I'm getting a massive nose-ache!"

"Even my underfur is soaked!" grouched Shiba. "No wonder that wolf didn't come in here."

"Too bad," Urushi remarked. "It needed the bath."

Apart from the pug, all the ninken snickered, their sharp barks and yips tangling within the haze. Inspired, others began slapping on their own rejoinders until the whole pack of them was howling. Pakkun shook his head as Kakashi's lips thinned: this wasn't another drill – this was a mission. When the shinobi made a horizontal chop with his right hand, the pug was more than happy to relay the command with a sharp bark.

The hounds silenced immediately.

Exhaling, Kakashi shifted his weight onto his toes and mentally sprinted through stratagems and outcomes. Retrieving the girl was the top priority: he knew that without Minato-sensei reaffirming his orders in their last radio communication. Even a team bolstered by the Flash's agility, would be hard-pressed covering all those old-timers; however, the mission came first. He would return with the girl and escape the dishonor of a failed mission, let alone the insufferable months in which Obito would rag on and on about how a cripple had outrun the Leaf's prodigy.

While that was the plan, finding the girl was proving a bit more difficult than he had calculated. Stuttering fanatic though she was, she proved herself even a bit clever. Kakashi doubted that even the Mist could properly track her in this fog. His brow cinched into a scowl beneath the forehead protector, the outer pressure paling beside the throbbing inner one. Though it was pointless to stumble around blindly, he would be even more useless just waiting around. It wasn't just like the girl was going to appear out of nowh-

A light appeared. A faint pinprick, but a light nonetheless.

Pakkun tensed beside him, his wrinkles bunching above sharp, white fangs. Experimentally, he lifted his snout and sniffed. Once. Twice. Growling, he met Kakashi's gaze and shook his head: he couldn't identify it.

The shinobi uncoiled himself, straightening up slowly as he stared into the lightening murk. He gave a cool whistle and heard the light tapping of claws on bark as the ninken shifted into better position. His father's tantō fell comfortably into his grip, and gray brows settled low over glinting, hooded eyes.

The bright speck doubled in size, then tripled. Its rays stretched out like talons, puncturing the gloom with a vengeance. The light ricocheted off the frozen droplets in the air, casting fluorescent explosions that made the intruders wince. Soon the whole horizon was ablaze at the dawn of an unfiltered sun.

The shinobi threw up an arm to shield his eyes, his pupils straining to shrink even further. For the first time in his life he had the fleeting wish that he had Obito's goggles, but he strangled that notion in its crib. His vision grew hazy as tears welled, but still he kept them open. Something was approaching, and approaching fast: not able to hear it, he needed to be able to see it. Having climbed the trees nearly to their peaks, he knew they had the advantage of higher ground. Even the girl's wolves would look like pups from this height. Still, Kakashi tensed.

"Steady," he steeled the ninken, predicting correctly that some of them were quaking in their inexperience.

It hurtled towards them, an unshackled star. He blinked – colors bleeding from the world as the light cleansed it all to white. Only flickers were left. Details here and there etched into the blinding mass of snow. Details that writhed. He didn't know if it was reality or just the watery film protecting the remnants of his vision, but the markings shifted before him, forming an incomprehensible pattern that churned like boiling seafoam.

He held his eyes open a moment longer, but that was it. He blinked – he had to – but in that flash of darkness, the light imprinted its image against his eye like a photograph. The afterimage seared into the curtain of his eyelids, and the details shone in sharp relief – a negative of the creature whose bulk filled the horizon.

It was a wolf. One whose sheer mass dwarfed the others in the pack, reaching the height of even these branches hundreds of feet above the floor. A behemoth of a creature rivalling even the size of Gamabunta, Minato-sensei's summon. Its muscles rolled, thrashing the pure white fur above like a cyclone striking a blizzard. Its gleaming fangs were longer than the boy's body, its points as sharp as the honed blade in his hand.

And in that moment, it was already upon them.

The shinobi jolted, his eyes springing open. The light flooded in, and his vision was reduced to popping static, but not before the image was burned into his memory, the most subconscious part of himself able to register it. An eye. A giant topaz eye in which he was only a dark reflection – a shadow puppet marring the brilliance. Its pupil widened incrementally, as if registering the boy in an afterthought soon to be forgotten.

Instantaneously, Kakashi sprinted towards Pakkun, seized the pug, and hurdled upwards – the action more engrained reflex rather than conscious decision. Slamming against the trunk, the shinobi twisted and drove his blade deep into the bark just before the two were buffeted on all sides. Still blind, it was only experience that allowed him to recognize the hammers pounding against his body did not belong to crushing fangs, but the gale the behemoth left in its wake as it sprinted past. He shrunk against the bark, weathering the maelstrom that set the bangs trapped behind his headband scrabbling at his nose.

When the wind allayed enough to allow him to peel back from wood, he blinked and rubbed at his eyes, reviving the short-circuited optics. As colors began to flicker back on, he cast his gaze around and shouted, "Status report!", his voice fraying just enough to betray something beneath the hard expression.

His shoulders relaxed as Guruko yelped, "What was it? I couldn't even see! Akino-kun?"

Akino, sporting the recent gift of sunglasses, grouched, "Didn't either."

Kakashi dropped, landing on a different branch than the one before. He released the pug who didn't try to conceal his glower, muttering something that could be construed as thanks. The shinobi straightened as the rest of the ninken assembled around him.

"It was a wolf," he explained, assessing them for any injuries. Other than a few shaking their heads or pawing at their eyes, they were okay. He let out a breath he had been holding and glanced towards the direction the titan was heading. Though its light still marked the horizon, it was fading. And fast.

But the shinobi's mind was faster. Gauging the options, he pounced upon his decision within a single breath. Whatever its intention, that giant had a destination, and since all of these wolves' harbored an obsession with that girl, he had a good idea of to whom it might lead. He looked toward Pakkun and raised a brow. The pug dipped his chin, coming to the same conclusion.

Kakashi lifted a hand and barked, "Ike!"

The tracking team bolted through the trees, chasing that setting sun. It was quick, quicker than the black wolf had been. Even Ūhei, the quickest of the hounds, had no chance to compete with the behemoth's block-sized strides. Though it stung to keep their gazes fixed on those shrinking rays, sight was the only sense returned to them. The ethereal fog washed away the rest of sound and smell, somehow stealing even the reverberations that should have been drumming through the earth at each of the great wolf's steps.

They sprinted, retracing the behemoth's path. The glow continued to fade until the shinobi could finally fully open his eyes – a realization that sent a jolt through his body. Yet the frustration that the light had finally disappeared was offset by what met his restored sight: a forest nearly bereft of mist. A forest whose foliage was shrinking to the point that the shinobi found himself descending as much as bounding forward. His head began to clear as if getting over the worst of a cold, but his senses needed more time to fully recover. He blinked a few times, fighting off the urge to sneeze like the pug did again at his side.

_It's leaving the fog? _he questioned, now able to discern the creature's trail by the splintered remains of trunks and clawed up earth. _Did the girl turn back and get by us? _His jaw tightened as he had to acknowledge that could have been the case, but he couldn't see her outsmarting him: she didn't even realize she was being watched this entire time.

His denouncing was interrupted when hearing finally returned to him with a sickening crack. But that snap wasn't his eardrums popping. He could just hear them now. Hear the shouts and howls and screams of man, wolf, and metal. He could hear them over the wind snarling in his ears, angered that someone dared to outrace it. Within a moment, he pinpointed their direction, not surprised that the wolf's trail veered directly for them.

At that moment, he caught Obito's shout, "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu", but there was something wrong with his voice, something finished. The wind's scream dialed to a shriek as his dash became an all-out sprint. The hair rose along the nape of his neck, incited by the chakra that was thickening in the air. Even at his distance he could feel its familiar waves roll over him, building and building until he could feel it physically battering him.

Recognizing the shockwaves just in time, he shouted at the ninken and yanked his momentum backward, driving his heel into the ground and twisting so that his back slammed against a trunk. The explosion shot past on either side of him, burning the faint shadow of the tree as black as ink. The wood groaned and shuddered, the outermost bark splintering free, but the tree remained upright. He leaned out from his shelter and raked his gaze over the gaping wound where forest should have been.

The blast zone had a diameter of a mile, and in that mile the land had been reduced to wood-strewn rubble. The earth was upturned: rocks that had never breached the surface lay exposed to the air. The shattered bones of trees were strewn across them, twitching and trembling in a wind that felt and tasted stale. Nature's lifeblood was splattered here, and its odor of soiled earth and rotten pine oozed outward from the slaughter. Nothing would grow here – not ever again.

Its executioner remained at its center, floating far above it all. The girl looked battered: eyes shuttered and head lolling to her left, her insensate form hung in the air as if held aloft by some cruel puppeteer. Her bruised and bleeding arm stretched out unnaturally – the shoulder out of its joint. Her right palm was raised, fingers twisted perversely over one another by the ineptitude of her manipulator. Yet beauty had never been the latter's plan: the killing intent still dripped from her alongside the blood that couldn't all be her own. A killing intent that even the shinobi sensed thought its focus was on a far greater target.

The titan wolf stood before the girl, its great head bent low so that her palm rested like a tick between its shut eyes. Yet, if it wasn't for its size, there could be no comparison to the creature that had blazed within the mist. With that strange fog dissipated, so too did the blinding luster of its fur, the glinting points of its fangs. Though it appeared the girl wasn't currently expelling chakra, the wolf still faltered as if balking at mere gravity. Whatever it had been in the mist, it was just a wolf now – one whose quaking legs and rattling breath hinted at its hastening deterioration.

With no time to analyze this decay, he instead questioned the standoff. _Why is the wolf against her?_ He constricted his gaze that had widened. _Why would it-_

Movement caught his eye, and his scrutiny darted towards the forepaws of the wolf. There stood a humanoid mass of writhing crimson, four tails weaving like wind-tossed and blood-stained stalks of wheat. The thing swayed there, sheltered behind the behemoth's paws, its empty, white eyes never shifting from the girl. If he hadn't seen so many strange things today, Kakashi might have not believed it: the wolf was protecting the jinchūriki.

Though that scum Noburu had informed them that Six Tails was a gentler bijū, there was no mistaking the power rolling from it now. If the rumors were true and that monster was fully unleashed, this whole mountain range would be devastated. _And it's just two short of a full takeover. _Kakashi let out a steady breath, a weight settling over his shoulders. This situation was out of hand. He needed to act. Fast.

He clenched his blade and surveyed the clearing for any signs of his team. He didn't have to look far: he spotted the telltale glints off of Obito's goggles within seconds. His brow knitted as he shook his head, reprimanding the dolt within his mind but feeling the knot in his chest loosen. He turned to the ninken and directed, "See the glare? That's the rest of the team. Head there but make sure to stay well away from the clearing."

The hounds yipped and darted into the underbrush. He kept his eye on them for a moment to assure their safety before he turned back to the task on hand. He slipped a scroll out of his pocket, unraveled it on the floor, and formed the seals, uttering the unsealing "Kaifū no Jutsu."

Smoke flared only to quickly dissipate and reveal the girl's cane – the eyes of the wolf on its hilt glaring at the shinobi. He raised a brow at it before grasping it. _The girl never went without this, eh? _he mocked the missing-nin's claim. _So much for bait. _He twirled it in his left hand as he carefully raised the White Light Chakra Saber, angling it towards Obito. He gave the tantō a quick twist, catching the moonlight, stopping only when the reflected lights blinked out of view.

Message sent, Kakashi straightened back behind the trunk and flung the cane to the ground in front of him. But it never hit the earth. A figure materialized just in time to snatch it out of the air, his fingers obscuring his personal seal for his legendary Flying Thunder God Technique.

"Kakashi-kun," Minato-sensei greeted, his tone steady, measured, although warmth flared in his gaze. The jonin's eyes hardened back to steel as he leaned forward and grasped the boy's forearm and murmured, "We have work to do."

And they disappeared.

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Hello, my fantastic readers!

Look at you! You made it through another chapter! High fives all around! Yes, I'm a bit loopy being pretty tired right now, but I _had_ to make these edits and post this up for you guys. Why? Because this recent chapter has gotten _so long_ that, to keep with my style/keep you all interested, I wanted to post this bit! Still interested? Liked it? Please, comment! I always love hearing from you guys! Obviously, other writers have said this, but it really makes our days!

There's a kind of Easter Egg in this chapter, I suppose? Not really. I won't make you guess since it's definitely more in my head, but essentially "Demon of the Hidden Mist" should sound familiar being Zabuza's moniker and all. It's a detail I added in and played up in my mind as him essentially carrying on his mother's mantel and, because of her mistreatment, giving him more reason to leave, blah, blah, blah. I sound so full of it. Oh geeze, I'll stop there. I need to sleep.

As usual, thanks for reading and happy FanFiction-ing everyone!


	40. Chapter 40

The thought erupted in the darkness, hanging there as blinding and inescapable as the sun. I didn't know who it came from: Izanagi or me. To be honest, I didn't even know if there was a distinction anymore. For until that moment, I had clung to the differences – those rifts that divided kami and girl. Those rifts of understanding, of intention, of emotion: the deepest among them the writhing tangle of remorse for Yori-senpai and fury for his murderer. With every revolting act the Kami committed, I found my edges and defined them from his – my abhorrence like a beacon for my consciousness to gather. I gouged out my existence and scrabbled for control over my own flesh, restraining Him from killing the rest. And for moments, I had been winning.

But now those divisions faded to nothingness. Faded in tandem with another's life. A life _She _had taken from me. From Us. For in that moment – when the blade punched through Akio-senpai's chest, when the light died in his eyes – the will of kami and miko became the same once more. And from that will – a connection of the basest of instincts – that one thought ignited:

_Kill._

Snatches of sight, of sound. They fractured around me, and I sensed them, just barely comprehending as sound clashed against image, image against thought, producing scenes of horror and destruction. I existed there, the consciousness of Izanagi-no-Okami an unbound entity enveloping my own. Suffocating me. Becoming me.

His colors – His _thoughts _– pulsed around me. Through them, I could actually see the fleshed pawn that was my body – a sacrificed piece in this divine game of shogi. Still, it was strange: it was not only sight I was afforded but pure perception. I could feel the soil against the doll's cheek as if that flesh still belonged to me: cold, biting, firm. I could taste its crude sweetness on the tongue, its consistency like the nut butter Azuumi-senpai used to make. I could recognize the wind tickling at the skin, its touch made firm by its iciness. Once that tattered, frail doll had been wholly mine but it was stolen from me now.

Drowning in His existence, I fell deeper and deeper into the Pitch that was Izanagi's essence, consumed as unconsciously as a fleck of dust. I dissolved into the tangent between oblivion and consciousness, evaporating amongst lightless chasms where concepts floated blurrily by – instinct or thought I didn't know. Mine or Izanagi's, I didn't know. The Kami's perceptions were unclear, the concepts barely attainable even though I existed amongst them. All I could feel was an annoyance, a feeling akin to ropes tightening around His whole being. He didn't like it. He hated the restriction of flesh just as I craved it. Still-

_Izanami/Death, _slithered the simultaneous thoughts, the black brands something more than just synonyms. Yet they existed in this mental prism for only a moment: those dark conceptions shattered beneath the dawning all-consuming fury that was that one thought: _Kill._

The Kami swelled around me, gathering Himself, trying to compact His consciousness enough to command movement. I could see darker, paler colors flit past me – His attempts to take control of the vessel, my flesh. I could see how His mind focused on a single finger to get it to move, I could feel His energy surging. Pathetically, reality snapped at the Kami's existence, refusing His passage just as the Pitch rejected mine. But it was enough. The energy became distorted, unfocused, pure feral rage that expanded from our target – the jinchūriki – to the rest of the glade and all those who remained.

But He didn't stop, and I didn't stop Him. Our Will shaped reality. And our Will demanded death.

I sank back into the recesses of our joint consciousness, watching the surrounding threads of musubi quiver as if they knew their impending doom. That scorching resolve flared within me – a sun consuming a planet. My own strings began to shudder. Then rock. Then snap. Unable to be contained any longer, the energy detonated outwards, warping, splintering, rocking the essences of every living thing around us.

Yet Izanagi didn't stop: the Kami kept pouring more and more of that energy into me, through me. My own strands convulsed once more, snapping and shredding under the strain – its cries echoing those surrounding us. By those slivers of perception, I could see the doll's flesh boil and scab away, could distantly feel it's every nerve screaming for release. It was going to shatter along with everything else – destroyed by its own extermination.

Yet it seemed to hang on. Extraordinarily, it weathered the blast. Miraculously, everything else did too. The strength of Our assault began to weaken. As what had happened when I deflected Grey Hair's attack, the energy began to be siphoned away, those destructive pulses absorbed and borne by some divertive force. Some opposing will. Through this interference, the threads began to slacken, to steady: they remained untouched, unhindered as they continued to doggedly flap in the wind of time. They didn't break. Not all of them. Not the thickest chords that rang with life.

For a moment, the attack flared, the Kami denouncing it as Izanami's interference, but the jinchūriki remained, the crimson manifestation of its musubi shielding itself but no other. It was then another thought burst like starlight in the Pitch. Its colors were bright, quick. They sprinted through the void – concepts too abstract for me to guess, but there was a sense of difference to them. They didn't belong here. No, they were foreign, strange. They belonged to something – someone – else, and that figure was approaching. They belonged to the one who possessed some mastery of the musubi, the one who had stifled the attack.

And it was calling out to Us. No. Not Us but _me_.

'_Mira.'_

Izanagi's existence shifted towards the intruder, His judgement crackling threads of Pitch that tore after this stranger's presence – those unbidden thoughts that had somehow entered our tangled minds. The outsider's convictions bolted through, insignificant, small little things not meant to be here. Oh, they burned fiercely though. For a moment at least. Yet in that one moment, they gave a point to this vast void – a center where none had been before. Whatever they were, whoever they belonged to, they challenged the Pitch and cried out: _'Mira!' _

Izanagi's black streams of consciousness latched onto the interloper's thought, biting into it viciously and tearing away its jugular. I stared at the scene, something stirring within my own consciousness. A memory. This had happened before. This had all happened before. The Pitch. The call.

Realization struck me like a thunderclap. I knew who it was that cried out to me, knew whose voice was trying to awaken me. Awaken Mira. And I remembered. Remembered _her_. Immeasurable rage clashed against unlimited love, and the joint will of Kami and miko shattered.

My consciousness gathered, and I tore from the Pitch engulfing me. I charged forward – a lost soul finally finding the entrance to this cave – and wrenched away the Pitch crushing the outsider's light. Weak as I was, I ripped at Izanagi's thoughts, clawing through to reveal a sliver of flickering light. Steeling myself, I squeezed through and reached out, my fingers brushing the flickering presence, connecting my soul and it's.

The Pitch around me began to fracture, ebony bursting into prismatic streams of light that arced away, fracturing and splintering to form beacons. The ink peeled back, coalescing elsewhere to reveal a strange shimmering scape. Brilliant rays continued to vault around us, sailing like stars through heavens the dark blue of evening's onset. The ground – a translucent oil far below us – twinkled back in reflection, greeting us to this celestial scape. It all seemed to stretch into eons around me, but for some reason, I knew there was an end to this place – an edge that only led to something beyond.

_Pure musubi, _I recognized, shaking in awe. _Shaking? _I glanced down to see that my consciousness had taken form here. Mental projections of familiar calloused hands, the same tattered hakama, the old bulging ankle all met me. And just as I had felt, they were all quivering. _What was happening?_

'_Mira.'_ The voice came again, a solid thing now – something I actually heard rather than sensed. The familiar cadence wrapped around me, its low tone full of assurance, its soft notes an embrace.

My chest suppressed a soaring heart, the bony cage nearly bursting from the pressure. I tried to iron out my trembling form, straightening to quaver a reply. But the words fell limply to the back of my throat as I looked to her, already knowing who had come.

Ka-san. She sat a wolf's length away from me, her topaz eyes even more brilliant than the celestial flames licking her form. Her white fur still tossed in that non-existent wind, as ephemeral and blinding as clouds passing before the sun. She sat there, the Mother of all wolves, my mother. She tilted her great head and murmured, _'I've missed you, my child.'_

I blinked. Something was wrong – something was _weak _– in her voice. I looked at her again, noting how her snout fell, ears lowered, gaze dropped. After such a long time, I should've had trouble gazing at her, but I realized then that something had dimmed in those piercing eyes, those flames that flickered along and within her form. Her forelegs shook, her frame on the verge of collapse, yet she remained upright – the fight not fully out of her yet.

I worked my mouth, wanting to call out to her, but no sound came out. My eyes widened, and I clutched for my throat, not even able to cough out whatever had silenced me. Panicking, I tried to sprint forward, yet my legs remained firmly entrenched as if I was lodged waist-deep in mud.

_Ka-san! _I screamed only in my mind, my fingers stretched out to her. _Ka-san! What's happening? Why can't I move? Where are we? Ka-san, help! _

Though she opened her maw, but the response cracked behind me. Its baritone battered me, causing my ethereal form to shimmer in its aftershocks. _'Be silent, vessel. Only I can hear your driveling, and it has no place in Ame-no-ukihashi.'_

My hands clenched the loose fabric of my hakama, ragged nails digging into the material. No revelation was needed for me to know who had spoken. My self-etched fury rekindled within me, yet my skin grew cold, pale. I had felt it – the chasm that had severed us, the emotions that splintered our wills. The love I held for my mother pitted against an unfathomable rage.

Muscles twitching, I began to turn to face the Kami of Creation. I had no plan, but that wasn't going to stop me. _The enemy of my enemy, _I mocked the mantra_. _I took a shallow breath and-

'_Don't!'_ Ka-san snarled, lurching to her feet. _'Don't look at him, Mira! You aren't strong enough! Just keep looking at me!'_

My eyes flashed towards her, and the panic widening her eyes and shaking her limbs quailed the courage within me. I smacked my teeth together, my stomach churning at my own weakness. Unable to do anything else, I dropped my chin to my chest, glancing down at my feet before I lifted my gaze once more and stared ahead at her.

She dipped her chin at me just as her back legs faltered. Trying to disguise her weakness, she fell into another seated position. She curled her tail to her stomach, met my gaze once more, then tilted back her head, her smoldering eyes trained to something far above me.

Izanagi's chuckle made the heavens dim. _'A vessel not strong enough? And whose fault would that be, Kukurihime?' _He addressed, the words empty. '_Mediator, your duty has been to watch the earth in my absence, to train my vessel if I should ever need to return. And what do I find? A miko so weak it cannot perceive me, let alone channel my strength.'_

Something cracked above me, and Ka-san lowered her eyes – a submission that set my teeth grinding. _'She has not finished training,'_ the wolf murmured. _'She was soon to leave for Sarutahiko-sama.'_

I blinked. _The earthly prince? Since when? _I clenched my fists as I tried to recall if Yuuta-sama had told me anything. My brow furrowed at the curdled memories of our time in his study, the way his bright green eyes were as soft as the moss along a brook. Now they were closed forever. My jaw began to ache yet the muscles only tightened. Just like the last time I had been in his library. Just like when Yellow Hair had told me-

I jolted as it all clicked into place. Yuuta-sama's dreams. His insistence to welcome the shinobi. The words 'Trust them' borne by the wind. _The Leaf Village? I was supposed to go there all along? _I slammed my eyelids shut as the extent of my actions rocked my core.

Behind me, Izanagi continued, his tone like the churning of the earth. '_It is too late for that now. It is your other interferences that demand my action. Why have you brought me to Ame-no-ukihashi? Do you not understand why your Creator walks the earth once more, kami?_' he challenged. '_Who it is that you've just shielded?'_

'_I do,'_ Ka-san rumbled. I opened my eyes to watch her ears lower but gaze lift once more. _'But this is not the way. The world does not need more anger, Izanagi-sama. You yourself said this, agreed to this.'_ Her tail shifted, her hair rising. _'I didn't train Mira to be a weapon but a guide. For both humans and you. So leave her now, and return to the Takamagahara. We need salvation, not destruction.'_

'_Those are one and the same,' _he refuted, the plane flickering around us. _'Ridding the world of her ilk will save you. She brought the taint of the Yomi into this world, and it has spread like rot throughout my creation, causing war and strife, gorging on the energy of life. Awakened by the cries of pain, I've returned to put an end to it once and for all.'_

Ka-san stiffened then, her ears flicking upright. Her eyes brightened, the flames turning searing once more. _'So you plan to rid the world of hatred through more hatred? End war by war?'_ she challenged, her muscles stiffening. _'We must stop this. Stop this now. __Izanami is gone, Izanagi-sama. Your crusade has long-since ended. The fragments who remain are not her. They only seek to survive like the rest of your children.'_

'_Has your youth deluded you, o wise kami?_' He spat. '_As I remain so does she, no matter the form we take. Her will of hatred persists, and it strengthens every moment. If this is allowed to continue, she will threaten Takamagahara itself.'_

'_Has your age has blinded you, Izanagi-san?'_ she rumbled, her hackles rising. _'We chose this path _because_ of you. Understand that what once was is not what is. Even if Izanami were to return, we should only learn from the past and seek a better way.'_

'_And I have found it,'_ Izanagi lashed. Ka-san flinched, keeping the whimper from her lips, but now even her forelegs began to sink, their joints collapsing beneath her as He continued, _'It was my weakness that led to this, and it will be my strength that will end this. The war does not end with her fracturing but her erasure.' _

The great wolf kami raised her eyes to him and murmured, '_It wasn't you who stopped her last time, Izanagi-sama.'_ The heavens seemed to flicker at that, the light gaining back its strength. Ka-san steadied herself, her great chest billowing as she set her fangs. _'And man has only grown stronger. Too strong. They don't understand the power they wield. Frightened of it, frightened of each other, they turned their backs to the kamigami and fight amongst themselves.' _Her eyes flashed. _'They've upset the balance in this world, and now they hasten its suffocation.'_

'_Do not lecture me, kami. I remember the night my shrine burned. There are truths to this world that even you do not know.'_ The lights around us began to pulse, their brilliance strengthening for the briefest of moments. _'You should have fled with the rest of the kamigami. Look at you, barely able to stand. Have you become that weak? A kami unable to maintain her physical manifestation now in the mortal realm, let alone in this spiritual connection.' _The beacons flickered in the wake of the quaking scoff._ 'You have no place in this fight, no place in this world. Not anymore.' _

Though the scaly words were not even directed at me, I cringed as they coiled around my eardrums, scraping the tissue as their grip tightened. Ka-san's ear twitched, her tail beginning to swish back and forth. Something she saw was putting her on edge. I blinked in astonishment, never having seen her become this anxious, this-

_Afraid? _The word caught in my mind just as something would stick in my throat. I tensed, bracing myself for whatever threat faced us. I would not allow anything to harm Ka-san. I'd lost too many in my family today: I would not lose another.

'_I advise you to leave, Izanagi-sama,'_ Ka-san murmured, the violence carefully picked from her tone. _'You cannot win this fight. You will kill Mira before you kill this fragment of Izanami. Release her, and return to Takamagahara.'_

'_Mira?'_ he posed, emptiness where knowledge should have been. _'Why do you keep saying that?'_

Ka-san snapped to her feet, fangs bared, ruff raised, tone breaking from her control. _'You do not even know the name of your vessel, and you question why you cannot fully manifest?'_ she criticized, her long-held anger erupting like a thunderclap. I crunched my inner cheeks between my teeth as she growled, _'Do you even remember why you fight Izanami? Or has this just become a petty game of numbers for you? An obsession to pass eternity? You've slaughtered your own children, and now you are killing your miko! Have you forgotten all reason?'_

'_You forget your place, __Kukurihime__.'_ No emotion flecked the words: the threat in them too great to be contained so simply. Instead, the azure vault above began to darken, and the stars began to wink out one by one. '_This is your last chance, kami, for this new path I speak of is not softened by my former mercy. Once you aided me, now you shield Izanami. So tell me where is it that you stand?'_

'_Where I always have,'_ Ka-san spoke, lifting her head, tail straightening. '_I acted not to save Izanami, but Mira. Nevertheless, you cannot see the difference. Not anymore.' _Understanding deepened the grooves along her maw, a cold pity washing over her. _'You are the one who has changed. Once you refused to fight out of the love you held. Now even your children flee from you. The kunitsukami of this forest did not run because of Izanami, but because of you.'_ Her eyes blazed – fear long gone. She unsheathed both fangs. _'Izanami isn't the only one who returned from the Yomi.'_

The sky above began to fracture and darken – a response my limited mind couldn't comprehend. The heavens began to collapse around us. The stars crashing into the liquid musubi like meteors, somehow cracking the shimmering substance to reveal the Pitch lying just below. The ink squirmed through the cracks, spilling forth like toxic snakes that began to pile one on top of the other, forming a wriggling mass of shadow.

The great wolf kami stood tall as the worms lapped at her paws, her light turning blinding once more. Froth dripped from her mouth alongside the words, '_Leave my daughter, or I will force you to leave.' _

The Pitch gathered in on itself and burst forth, tentacles shooting out to ensnare her. A silent snarl ripped open my lips just as one wrapped itself around my leg. I clawed at it, but another caught my wrist. I strained to keep upright, but the Pitch slammed me to the floor to allow the rest to slither over me and drown me once more. I screamed 'Ka-san!' but no sound came out; instead, those black serpents snaked down my throat. I jerked and strained for a last glimpse of my mother, but the black overtook me once more. The ground shattered beneath me, and I fell back into the void – the roars of kamigami trailing my descent.

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A/N: Ah, my readers, it's been too long! Major apologies for the recent lag on my end. I was pinned down by finals for a while there, and needed some time to get used to actual sunlight again. However, now I am back at it, and hopefully this chapter gives you a midweek boost! I've done some light edits (some grammar here and there), and I am determined to get these next two chapters out to finally finish this segment and move on to the next part of the story! Hopefully it hasn't gotten too dragged out (though my delayed posting probably doesn't help)!

Regarding this chapter, I know the language is probably vague (reflecting Mira's inability to fully comprehend what was happening) but hopefully you all got the gist of it! I suppose some readers may have noticed the 'Easter egg' I dropped in this chapter regarding Ame-no-ukihashi: if so, congrats because even I know it was super obscure tie-in to those star-filled heart-to-heart conversation scenes (a la N.S. Ep. 384). Is that boorish of me to mention that? Did that not come across at all? Eh, at least you know now for sure, and if you didn't know, hopefully you are least like 'Oh, okay. Random.'. There'll be lots of stuff like that, but well got to get back to writing! See you all soon! Happy FanFiction-ing!


	41. Chapter 41

_**Quick Note:**__ As the characters in this POV only know Mira's Ka-san as a gigantic wolf, I will distinguish her as Okami [which is "wolf" in Japanese, which coincidentally also means, bum bum BUM, "Great God"]. Didn't expect that, did you? Either way, I'll refer to Kizuato-san and Hana-san as simple "wolves". Hopefully that'll help you guys understand! Now let's get to it! _

_**The Path So Far: **_

_Within the debris of her own blast, Izanagi – still possessing Mira – faces off against Ka-san and Habu the jinchūriki. Ka-san, having deflected Izanagi's last attack, is now speaking with the great Kami on a spiritual plane, or "mindscape" as it is referred to in canon. Kakashi having freed himself of the Ancient Wood's mist has finally rejoined his team. In possession of the seal, the team must now plan their attack…_

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The jutsu was over before Kakashi had even realized what happened. In a fraction of a second, the world had melted around him only to be repainted in familiar shades yet different patterns. He found himself in another copse of dead branches and crumbling leaves though this time at the other end of the clearing. Though the boy didn't need it, Minato kept his grip on his student's arm, steadying him after the spatial distortion. The moment Kakashi felt his sensei's hold loosen enough so it wasn't entirely rude, he jerked away.

Minato, who didn't notice or more likely just chose to ignore it, settled beside the thin veil of disintegrating leaves to watch the girl, the wolf, and the jinchūriki. Kakashi moved to join him just as another hindrance snared his attention.

"Kakashi-kun!" Rin cried, her usual warmth tempered by relief. Too much relief, he noted as if his appearance meant she could finally drop some burden from her shoulders.

The young shinobi glanced at her, concern a minor factor in his swift assessment. Beneath matted chunks of hair, the kunoichi stared at him with those large doe's eyes, unease quivering on her sweat-rimmed brow. The purple visible on her cheeks was smeared, the rest hidden beneath a coat of earthen grime. As a medical-nin, most strategic formations placed her in the last line of battle, yet the ragged gashes along her sleeves and the blood staining her skirt spoke otherwise. Fortunately, the blood wasn't hers: in fact, other than the exhaustion toppling her limbs, she remained unhurt.

_Still useful, _Kakashi labeled as he dipped his chin at her, meeting that gaze whose brightness he'd never seen dim. His cold scrutiny lowered to the person she hovered over, her hands pulsing with that green chakra. _As for him- _His brows sunk over a dulled glare, but he kept the worst of his disdain beneath a thin, expressionless plaster. _Typical._

The Uchiha was lying before Rin, wavering on chakra-depleted unconsciousness. He should have been out cold already, but that idiot couldn't afford to lose an opportunity like this. Beneath fluttering lids, he kept furtively glancing up at Rin's concentrated expression, a blush blooming along his cheeks.

_If he's got enough blood for that, then he's fine, _Kakashi berated, crossing his arms over his chest.

Obito must have sensed his teammate's disdain as he peered over at Kakashi from the corner of his eye. His flush faded as his shoulders tensed and with an exaggerated – though still pathetically weak – jerk of his head, he returned his sights to the kunoichi.

Kakashi flicked his narrowing gaze toward the clearing, returning the silence.

Rin peeked up from her work, her eyes darting between the two boys. Her brows knitted and she opened her mouth though no words came out. She was saved from the awkwardness when Minato called her name. "Hai, sensei," she answered, swiveling to the captain only for her concern to deepen as she saw him massaging his thigh, working the muscle that she had just healed.

However, the jonin seemed to be kneading it absentmindedly, his cold gaze not shifting from the figures locked in the middle of the clearing. "Give your analysis of the situation to update Kakashi-kun," he ordered, his mind clearly in the brambles of strategy. "We need everyone on the same page before we move next." His right hand shifted, and three-pronged kunai glinting between each knuckle.

The kunoichi nodded, relaxing back from Obito whose lower lip puffed out at the perceived abandonment. She looked to their returned comrade who had taken up position by their sensei and relayed her adept assessment to the grey mess that was the back of Kakashi's head.

Halfway through it, around the part the priest named Yori died, she paused in her rendition. Kakashi heard the noise too, but the familiar tapping of nails alerted him to who it was, and he noted to himself that he needed to work with the ninken on stealth when they returned home.

With a rustling of leaves, the hounds leapt into the clearing, their tongues lolling as they panted. Rin cooed a welcome to them, her smile brightening. Obito, whose eyes had been closed, jolted upright in a floundering panic. When he realized the identity of the intruders, he scowled and quickly began rubbing an eye.

"You shouldn't be moving," Rin chastised him, scratching faux-reluctant Urushi behind the ear.

"They got dirt in my eye," he grumbled broadly – the lie as clunky as usual.

Kakashi glanced back. Even if it wasn't true, he snuck a nod to the panting dogs before returning his gaze to the miko.

Despite that interruption, Rin was able to wrangle the important details to under three minutes – her efficiency probably due to the absence of the too-exhausted Obito's usual interjections. "When the jinchūriki started to lose control," she rounded up, "the Mist finally realized that they shouldn't be focusing on us. The thing is when we tried to get between Habu and-" She glanced towards the clearing, her next word a questionable snarl on her tongue, "_Mira_, or the thing possessing her at least, she-" She trailed off, the words obvious enough. "If it wasn't for that Okami, we would've died. I couldn't see exactly what happened, but it raced into the clearing just before the explosion and seemed to take the brunt of it. I can't believe it's still standing."

Obito broke in then, his whine tinged with a slight blubbering as he leaned forward and crunched a cheek on a fist. "Rin-chan," he griped, "you forgot to talk about my awesome jutsu!"

Rin gave him a small smile as her brows arched over closed eyes. "Ano," she assuaged, folding her hands on her lap. "Gomen, Obito-kun."

The boy continued, but Kakashi tuned him out as his focus sharpened on the two new figures that entered the clearing. Wolves – the last two remnants of the pack – paused at the edge of the woods. His gaze didn't remain on them for long – a quick glance was enough to know they were on their last legs. The white one struggled at every step: hamstrung, its bloodied hind leg dangled along the floor. The black one supported it with a shoulder, its knees quivering at the effort. Every few moments, it had to jerk its head, flicking away the blood that dripped into its eyes from the stumped remains of an ear. Even from this distance, Kakashi could hear their pitiful whimpers and pathetic growls, their eyes fixed far above to where his scrutiny returned.

He lifted his chin to stare at the girl, the truth he'd given her that night echoing back to him: _One day, you'll see that you've only caused pain. On that day, you'll be too weak to do it yourself, and you'll wish that I killed you here._ His shoulders tensed. _Now look at what you've done_. Nothing had changed with her broken, blood-soaked figure. Her chest hadn't even once lifted in a breath since the shinobi's return.

The same couldn't be said for the Okami. It had passed the verge of collapse, its limbs crunching inwards at the joints like great oaks buckling under their own weight. Its vast chest shuddered – just a thin flag flapping in cold wind. Pain contorted its body: muscles twisted the terrible head on which ears had fallen flat, and its colossal tail curled pitifully to shield its stomach. Its wrinkled hackles trembled beneath the twitching eyelids, the wolf wilting before whatever nightmare it saw. Still, it fought to keep its head pressed against the child's touch even when its own body tried to wrench the titan away. Even when the blood began to flow from its eyes and drip off its great canines.

The jinchūriki too remained crackling beneath the Okami's paws, bowed over on all fours, overtaken by its own inner struggle. It twitched occasionally, though it didn't seem to notice when droplets of blood fell onto its back, the gleaming chakra hissing at the wet embrace. If Rin was right, Habu and the bijū were mentally battling: the former who'd return to carnage, the latter who seemed to only want to escape. Either action would be the trigger that set the others off.

Kakashi wrapped his palm around his fingers, his short nails nipping at his skin. The White Light Chakra Sabre grew warm against his back, and he turned to see its hilt peeking over his shoulder. Exhaling, he looked down and began cinching his armguards and bluntly interrupted Obito's continued boasting with, "So she's immune to all jutsu?"

Rin's shoulders dropped as she gave a small nod. "Seems like it," she admitted, "though she doesn't like fire very much."

Obito's chest puffed up as he jabbed a thumb against it. "If you'd been _listening_," he jabbed, "you'd have heard that my Gōkakyū no Jutsu was so strong it actually did hurt her. Us Uchihas really are the strongest with Fire Release, so it makes sense that Mira-chan freaked out so much when I did it."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at him as Rin gave an apologetic sort of smile. Suspicion swirled in his chest as a memory of the meadow flickering at the back of his mind – a memory where the girl somehow had latched onto his lightning chakra and dropped in the ensuing electrocution.

"Where?" Kakashi snapped. "I didn't see anything."

The boy frowned at that and scrunched his nose. "You can't see it from here, but I managed to burn her ankle. You know, the swollen one that Rin-chan healed?"

Kakashi twisted to back at the miko, neither the angle nor the distance admittedly helping him. From what he could see, the puckered flesh was coated in muck and leather – the latter appearing to be the only thing singed. Unsurprised that the boy's boasting of his great family was again unfounded, he turned back to adjusting his equipment. "And that last blast really did come from the girl, Rin-chan?" Beneath a silver brow, his gaze rose to scrape hers, blatantly cutting out the incompetent Uchiha. "Not the bijū?"

Obito scowled as Rin perked to confirm Kakashi's suspicions with a nod, his resolve with a shudder. "I don't know how to describe it," she murmured, a frown tugging at her lips. "It was like Sensei's Rasengan. This white ball started forming above her hands but-" She shook her head, her snarled bangs rattling above shadowed eyes. "I don't know."

"You're correct, Rin-chan," Minato addressed, turning his gaze onto his students. "My Rasengan is based off the Bijūdama which seems to be similar to what Mira was trying to do. She's not able to fully manipulate the chakra. Not at the level of the bijū. She nearly killed herself and the rest of us in her haphazard attack. We can't let her attempt it again."

The three young shinobi straightened as Minato regarded them with cool, clear eyes, shifting his gaze equally between the three of them. His scrutiny rested on the last and youngest of the team. "Kakashi-kun," Minato-sensei addressed, holding his hand out. "The seal."

Kakashi blinked, his shoulders drooping. Keeping his expression cool, he reached into a pocket, setting off a dozen wooden clicks that solidified into one large clack as his grip tightened. He pulled his hand out to reveal a palm filled with loose beads and a frayed cord that limply dangled past his thumb, its end freshly cut. Keeping his gaze straight, he stepped forward only for one of the beads to slip from his grasp. He managed to swipe it before it hit the ground and quickly shoved it all into the jonin's hands before twisting away, chin in the air.

"Baka!" a gloating Obito sniped.

Kakashi ignored him and settled his weight onto his heels. Dryly, he voiced, "Sensei, can you fix it?"

Minato's brows had lowered and his expression had stilled as he analyzed the seal's remains in his palm. Carefully, he picked a wooden pearl up and rubbed it between two, calloused fingers. "Thought so," he murmured. "I don't know this fūinjutsu [Sealing Technique], but whatever's left of it reeks of old and powerful chakra. The only person who might know something about fixing it is back in the Village."

After a moment, he let out a sigh and slipped the bead onto the cord, starting to do the same with the rest. His brow twitched as he struggled to dart the leather string through another pearl's uneven hole. Accomplishing that, the legendary jonin managed to get the hang of it and quickly slipped on the remaining beads. "We'll have to find another way to seal her," Minato abruptly returned to the original topic at hand. "It'll be hard, but I have another plan in mind."

Finishing, he lifted up the strand only to realize there wasn't enough cord to make another knot. Eyes dulling, he turned to the kunoichi. "Rin-chan, look in your pack for some sort of binding. I don't want this falling apart again."

"Hai!" She held out her hands to receive the prayer beads as Kakashi continued to smoothly avoid Obito's leering grin.

The youngest shinobi shifted onto his toes, attention piqued at the mention of strategy. Kakashi had run the scenarios through his mind as well, and he only could find one solution – the ultimate one which ensured the girl would never lose control again. The dark implication suited his voice, honing the words until they were as sharp as the blade he intended to use. "So," he asked, unsheathing the tantō, "how should we neutralize her, Sensei?"

Minato met the boy's glinting eyes with impassiveness, his lips set in a straight line. Kakashi's gaze didn't falter, though he noted that Obito – the half-rate shinobi that he was – looked at their captain expectantly for an answer, completely unaware that his teammate had proposed one.

"We'll work together to _save_ her," the jonin answered, his tone firm, unfazed.

Kakashi's brows crunched together, genuinely perplexed. "But, sensei, the protocols say when the jinchūriki loses control, all available shinobi should respond and use full force. If all other options have been exhausted, that force should become lethal." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Since she's no different now than an unsealed Kyūbi-"

"No." The word was sharp – just short of biting. Though his tone and expression remained calm, the captain's order brooked no argument. "The real Mira-chan is in there. I saw it in her eyes when she managed to keep It from killing me." He turned his gaze to brush over the other two and ordered, "If there's another way, we save her. To know what is right and not to do it is the act of a coward."

His eyes paused over Kakashi who looked away, thankful for the mask that hid the pink of the heat constricting his throat. His grip on the tantō grew taught, his callouses digging further into the worn hilt.

Minato nodded at this and looked back towards the forest's wound within which the three figures remained deadlocked. He motioned towards the movement at westernmost edge of blasted trees and interpreted, "There's only a few of the Mist shinobi left, and they won't be eager to take on their crazed jinchūriki, Mira, and us. They'll cut their losses and keep the demon they know, so let the Mist restrain their bijū." He glanced towards Kakashi, his voice hardening. "Once they have it sealed, send the ninken. We're too weak to have them coming after us again."

The boy nodded, having considered this already. After containing the bijū, the few Mist shinobi that were left would be exhausted, easy targets that even Obito could take down on his own. With a bit of luck, the Mist reinforcements would arrive to find Habu unconscious from the tightened seal and surrounded by the stiffening bodies of her teammates. With their summons having only mentioned the Yellow Flash, hopefully they'd come to the obvious – and wrong – conclusion and choose not to pursue them. The shinobi looked towards Pakkun who dipped his chin in understanding.

"That leaves Mira to us," Minato stated. "Ryū Formation. Teamwork will be essential here. Divide her attention between us. If you think you have an opening, check it twice. Otherwise, keep moving and soften your blows to incapacitate her only." His eyes flashed to Kakashi whose jaw clenched but then captain turned to the Uchiha who was struggling to rise. "Obito-kun, stay here and recover."

The boy jerked his head up, eyes wide as he began to protest but Kakashi cut him short. "You'll only get in the way," he snapped, his misdirected bitterness an acid in his words.

Obito fumed at that, but the frustrating truth of it was pricking the corner of his eyes. Habit had him glance towards the otherwise engaged kunoichi, checking if she had heard. Yet upon seeing her, his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Woah, Rin-chan! What'd you do?"

Despite the alarm in his voice, the hair rising along Kakashi's neck had him swiveling towards the clearing in tandem with Minato. While the jonin understood the sight in one glimpse, the genin froze, eyes stretching wide. Behind him, Rin's voice panicked, "I-I don't know. I just dabbed some medical adhesive onto it, and to activate the binding I channeled some chakra through it and they just started glowing and, well, do you think the seal is working, Sensei? Sens-"

She quieted when she saw it too.

They were staring at them. Both girl and Okami. They stood there, their eyelids peeled open to reveal empty ebony and stunned yellow, their gazes somehow seeing through the thin shroud of leaves that separated them. Unblinking, those creatures stared at the shinobi, their awakening shattering the delusion of refuge.

And upon those splintered remains death came to feast.

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Hey kickass readers! Hope you're doing well! Just wanted to give you all a high five for continuing on with this story! Angry this part was so short? Well, the conclusion to this battle will come out within the next few days, so stay tuned! Just wanted to keep you amped is all! ;)

Like I said, this section has gone on waaay longer than I expected (the bare bones of this part was originally 400 words and now it's gone upwards of 10k). Yikes. Hopefully it's maintaining that dramatic edge until the battle concluding in the next update!

For those of you who may have caught it, yes Mira is trying to form the Truth Seeking Orbs! "But," you cry, "those are black in canon!" Yes. Yes, they are. And hers are white! Why? Well, that will be answered. Just stay tuned for future updates!

Otherwise, leave a comment if you like, and ConCrit is always encouraged!

Happy FanFiction-ing!


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N: Dear Readers! Please excuse any inconvenience in reading this story. I am currently undergoing some editing and maintenance to create a better reading experience overall. If you are waiting for new material, please note that I will post new sections after August 10th. Until then, I apologize if you've received an accidental notification as I've been strenuously working around the system to avoid emails being sent out to readers. Other than that, Happy FanFictioning!**

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**The Path So Far: **

Izanagi – possessing Mira – seeks only to destroy the Six Tails. However, Okami-sama, Mira's mother, is defending the bijū and is attempting to convince the Amatsukami of another path. Meanwhile, Team Minato was planning their strategy when Rin somehow manages to fix Mira's seal, triggering the kamigami to war.

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Only once before had Kakashi felt death like this. So visceral. So real. It detonated within him, bashing his every nerve loose. It came from her. Came from those black eyes. All that hatred, all that rage – the sheer amount of it was a solid, crushing mass. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't _think. _The world was collapsing on top of him, the darkness a starved tiger that circled his vision, pacing closer and closer. Its black spittle pooled before his eyes, restricting his sight just like it had on that night, in that room. His joints locked just as they had then, just as they had when he'd seen-

"San!" Minato's voice descended like a hammer, smashing the boy free from his cage.

Kakashi jerked to his senses but his feet were already moving – his conditioned muscles sprinting ahead of his conscious mind. He blinked, registering that he had launched forward when the thin shield of leaves slapped and gnashed at his cheeks. He broke into the clearing, his mind already mapping out a hundred paths while his eyes washed over the cracked earth. It looked like some sort of mile-wide scab whose dried blood formed valleys of rock just large enough for a man to sprint through. Ancient trees were uprooted, their trunks spearing the bedrock, their roots still crisscrossing the dirt like puss. Amongst them, he could make out still forms – pricks of olive flesh and mottled furs – but his focus never landed long on the body of any man or wolf.

A feral roar that pounded against his eardrums as he twisted on a heel and sprinted right, the explosion behind him clawing his back with residual shockwaves. His shin struck an outcropping of rock, but he kept his balance and his head despite the wooden flesh that began to fall around him like hail. The barks popped like bubbles as they crashed to earth, but the sound of their splintering was muted behind the Okami's deafening howl.

Judging that the titan wolf was occupying the miko, Kakashi took advantage of the opening and dashed through the cragged terrain. His hearing crackled back into focus, and beneath his measured panting, he heard a skittering of nails at his heels. His gaze jerked back to meet Pakkun's hard eyes just before the pug darted beneath an exposed root. The rest of the ninken were in close pursuit, keeping to their practiced formation. Yet as Buru leapt over a rock and his hulking form thudded to the ground, another adherent was revealed.

The shinobi's gaze met Rin's. She stared back at him, fear rounding her pupils and paling her cheeks. Her steps were sloppy – too loud as she misjudged unstable rocks. Though her arms were held straight as rods behind her, the shaking of her fingers ruined her streamlined form. Her lower lip quivered as if she were on the verge of tears, but her lashes were dry – her training keeping her head that much at least.

Something pawed at Kakashi's attention – an unnatural dark jittering by her hands – and his eyes jerked towards it. He recognized them immediately, their form snapping at her forearm like a captured and desperate snake. There, dangling from her right fist, were the prayer beads.

The immensity of that realization hit him squarely in his chest, causing the dark fabric to hug his lips by the shoving of a sharp breath. The cusps of his teeth ground into one another as he analyzed the wooden pearls, their glowing edges just starting to dim from whatever Rin had done to them. In a second, his mind had jammed the repaired necklace, the miko's awakening, and her killing intent together, their corners lining up too neatly to be coincidence.

Seemingly, the seal had been restored. And with that, everything had changed.

Kakashi met Rin's stare again, his eyes probing for any understanding only to find panic strangling any reason. She couldn't even meet his gaze squarely: she was blinking too fast, the sweat sliding over her white lips like tears. He recognized the terror – had seen its reflection on so many faces that it was more his companion now than most he knew.

Irritation clamped his brow, gouging wrinkles behind his headband. The sharp reminder of theNight – of what true despair was – had only reinforced how useless that emotion could be. Nothing good came of it: it only turned people useless. Just like now. He could sense its familiar imposition unfold around him as, yet again, his peers were in no shape to aid him, leaving him alone to complete the mission.

Jaw clicking, Kakashi smashed his heel against a protruding root, breaking his momentum so that the ninken shot past him and the kunoichi appeared at his side. He quickened his pace to match hers as she turned to him, the words "Are you okay?" tumbling from her lips.

"Where's Minato-sensei?" he bit, the snap in his tone cutting off her nonsense.

She blinked at him, those too-dilated pupils slack in incomprehension.

"Rin-chan!" he rebuked. "Focus!" His hand lashed out like a viper, snatching the necklace from her weak and quivering fingers. The beads coiled around his wrist – a defenseless constrictor writhing in the fangs of his fingers. "Did you see Minato-sensei?"

Her bangs scattered as she shook her head, though paradoxically she stammered out, "G-grabbed Obito-kun before a Shunshin!" She forced a deep breath between her teeth as she clamped her eyes shut, her brow creasing. "Kakashi-kun what do-"

"Keep with the formation," he asserted, starting to speed up. "We need to give Minato-sensei an opening so he can restrain the girl." He hefted the beads. "That's when I'll end it." He sensed a question bubbling in her throat so he popped it with, "Now get in your position!"

Rin jerked her chin up and down, the muscles flexing alongside her jaw. When she looked up, a kunai dropped into her right palm - its hungry flash mirrored in her eyes that steeled beneath a kunoichi's cold rationality. She dug her heel into the dirt and pivoted to the opposite direction, tracing the forest's edge as she took her position as the left-wing to his right in the pincer movement.

Unburdened, Kakashi quickened his pace. The seal clenched in his palm, he leapt, rolled, and darted through the broken landscape. He raced past each of his ninken, running an eye along their miraculously uninjured forms. Taking his place at the head of the pack, he steered them closer to the forest's collapsing edge where the ground, held together by the roots, was more even. Their flanks would be shielded here by that outermost ring of fractured rock rising like a wave; though it sacrificed a clear line of sight on the target, Kakashi knew they needed this buffer in case the miko continued seeking the prayer beads.

_Which should be soon, _Kakashi reasoned, the necklace writhing in his grip. Flying past a cracked boulder, he looked through its cleaved center just in time to see the froth glinting off the Okami's fangs, its cavernous maw about to engulf the miko.

_It's going to kill her?_ the icy scrutiny flared in his mind, but a hunch bawked at that notion: it was doubtful the wolf would harm the girl._ Unfortunately._

Still, he narrowed his eyes, strange shadows of emotion weaving in his gut: the faint hope the behemoth would just finish her off, the regret that he wouldn't be the one to do it. But below those ephemeral flickers lay something more substantial – that single constant that formed the core of every true shinobi. His suspicion roused, its crackling hiss awakening his cynicism that predicted this end would be too swift, too easy.

As always, his pessimism weighed heavy with truth. Just before the fangs imprisoned her, something twitched within the miko – some primal realization that she needed to act – and she narrowed those ink-coated eyes onto her challenger. Her wrist wrenched sideways, and reality exploded outward.

Kakashi could barely track the blast – an invisible wave of energy whose edges were defined only by strange, distorted ripples – but its effect was clear enough. The prismatic explosion hurdled the titan wolf towards the far end of the glade, its mass ripping through ramparts of stone and palisades of wooden spears. It slammed into a jagged upheaval of stone crust and crashed to a halt, the sharp snapping of ribs nearly eclipsed by the wolf's piercing yelp. It crumpled to the earth, its impact reverberating throughout Kakashi's bones and setting his teeth rattling.

But the boy barely noticed.

When the girl failed to deliver a finishing blow, his unease deadened to understanding. He wrenched his gaze around, eyes widening as they landed to where the behemoth had stood. His stomach clenched. His cold fingers darted to wrap around his tantō's weathered hilt – the familiar sensation the closest thing he had to a parent's reassuring touch. His knuckles blanched as they curled around the grip, his triceps tightened as he slid it free from its holster, never once taking his eyes from the jinchūriki who lay there, fully exposed.

The girl's matte eyes dropped, her full focus now sewn to the scarlet figure below her. The jinchūriki flexed under her gaze, its claws of chakra crunching into the rock below as its own inner war waged. With no more time, one of the psyches – Habu or bijū – had to assume control. Its four tails lashed furiously at the air, entwining around each other as the monster shook its head. Slowly at first, then all at once another tail festered up from the scarlet demon, announcing the champion.

Its lids peeled back from glowing white voids that flashed to the miko – a primitive hatred wrinkling its brow. The Six Tail's hind legs coiled like a spring as it prepared for its attacker.

Kakashi skidded to a halt, his shoulder slamming against an unearthed fragment of bedrock. His ninken followed suit, bracing both against him and stone as they tried to restrain their whimpers to their throats. The shinobi's chest rose and fell in deep swells, his eyes locked onto the two combatants. Though he had trusted few – if any – of the missing-nin's words, he could only hope that Noburu's assessment of the Six Tails – that its less combative nature would lead it to flee if given the chance – was accurate. Yet directly beneath the miko's gaze, that chance was nonexistent.

And the creature knew it. Its new tail lashed the earth, gouging forth a plume of shattered rock. The bundle of chakra that was its body darkened, the patterns churning along its form as it compressed, hunkering down for the battle to come. With nowhere to escape, desperation drove the bijū to war.

The energy crackling in the air spurred the hair along Kakashi's arms to rise, jabbed his stomach to tighten. His senses drowned in the overwhelming chakra that brewed before him, and his nerves tittered as they did when he attempted to mold lightning. He knew it only meant a pointless end if he interfered: he stood no chance against creatures like this. He sensed it out there: the starved tiger was once more prowling the land, yet this time death circled girl and bijū, its ears pricking as it waited to pounce. As the bijū began to leap from its crouch, death opened its maw-

A howl clanged through Kakashi's skull, so deafening that his mind muted his other senses to register the noise. He shook his head, winking dots from his vision as he realized that the Okami had staggered to its feet and now faced the girl, its own blood dribbling from its mouth. The noise was so horrendous, so menacing that even the miko jerked her head towards it, her lips wrinkling back in a silent hiss.

And the opening was created. The Six Tails twisted on its hind legs and streaked across the clearing. It raced towards the wood's edge, diving and weaving between the chasms of earth.

Recognizing her mistake, the miko jerked back, a dissonant screech bashing its way out of her throat. She swiped her broken fingers at the crimson blur, and the soil detonated at the bijū's right foreleg. Fractured rocks punched into the bijū's gut as it was flung to the left, its momentum just enough to keep propelling it forward.

It shattered through three apartment-sized trunks before it crunched into and toppled a fourth. The ancient trees screamed as they fell, the last acts of their peaceful lives ones of hate as they tried to crush their killer. The bijū's tails shot out like limbs. They caught the capsizing trunks who screeched as their bark splintered beneath the raw chakra, showering the monster with their sappy entrails.

The Six Tails hefted the colossal corpses and let out its own earsplitting shriek. Its tails whipped forward, hurling the trunks at the miko. The wooden bones pummeled the air, blunt spears whose sheer force would impale the enemy.

The girl gave no reaction. Save the onset of an odd jerking along her lips, she just floated there until, just before the moment of impact, she yanked her palm downward. The trees splattered on the ground below as if they were simply overripe fruit. All the while, her eyes – those starved voids – never left the bijū's figure.

Suddenly, the air grew cold, heavy. The Six Tails swayed as it lurched to its feet, its form hissing as its wounds cinched closed. Another keening roar pried open its jaws just before it yanked its neck fully back. Its tails stiffened and curled inward, surrounding its blazing mouth as its power began to pulse.

Blobs of chakra shot forth from its skin, their raw hues flickering shades of brimstone and transparent crystal. Those bubbles floated just above its crackling, red skin but only for a moment: at some unbidden command, they crushed together. Crimson smashed into quartz, their purities defiled by their union to create a black orb that floated there above its fangs. Air seemed to fracture at its edges as if its density was so great that it bent reality itself.

_Its like the girl's, _Kakashi realized, apprehension tightening his shoulders until it felt like hands were clenching his neck. Guruko whimpered at his side, and the shinobi laid a steady hand between the hound's lowered ears. His comfort was meager though: the earth itself began to quake as if it knew the horror that was to come.

_But its chakra – It's not unraveling. It's not flaring. Its- _His grip tightened on his blade. _It's in control._ He twisted and yanked out the order, "Fall back! _Now!_"

The team scattered into the trees, sprinting as fast they could to put some distance between themselves and the impending destruction. Kakashi looked over his shoulder to find the miko, questioning if her seeming immunity would apply even to the bijū's raw chakra nature – a nature that seemed so like her own.

The girl's skin seethed with apoplectic blisters as her form rocked unsteadily. Her arm jerked upwards, the limp wrist flailing at the motion. Her fingers wrung themselves around one another, the muscles controlling them crunching and grinding against outlined bone. There was a soft crack, and the knuckles snapped straight. A blinding, white energy ripped open along her fingertips as if she were tearing open a void in space. Her mortal flesh sizzled and spat, skin and sinews falling from her hand to spatter against the dirt, revealing the blush of muscle and cream of bone.

Kakashi caught himself on a root and whipped himself behind a tree, jerking his team to a halt a hundred yards within the shelter of the woods. He peered out to watch the glow on the miko's palm flicker and dim, unable to properly coalesce at the inability of its manipulator. But instead of controlling the chakra she held, the miko simply piled more and more into her palm as if she thought the savagery of strength would be enough to win.

But it was already too late.

The bijū jerked its head downwards, and the condensed sphere of chakra detonated outwards. The air shrieked as it was cleaved by the blast, its severed body producing gusts that exploded throughout the clearing and beyond. Rubble the size of oxen pummeled the first ranks of trunks in their desperate bid to escape, smashing and toppling those that dared to stand in their way. The great trunk that sheltered Kakashi and his ninken groaned and buckled in the maelstrom, the remains of branches and boulders whipping past its sides.

The shinobi's hair turned traitor and slashed at his face, grey knives that tried to pry out his eyes. He looked to the ninken crouched against his legs only for the moan of wood to snatch his gaze upwards. The trunk teetered above them, its thick canopy of green that once kept it alive and fed now ensuring its death.

Kakashi jerked a step backward, the seals already forming, the chakra already gathering as he snapped, "Doton: Doryūheki [Earth Release: Earth Style Wall]!" He slammed his palm to the ground, and earth shot up at his command. The thick wall braced the crumpling trunk while the Six Tail's shockwaves flayed great shards of stone from its edges. A fragment pelted towards Ūhei's skull, but his fist bashed it away just in time. He reached out and yanked the dog in closer, only letting him go when he felt the air settle.

Kakashi straightened as a breeze flowed inwards, resettling into the void the bijū's blast had ripped open. It set his hair tickling his brow as if apologizing for its earlier cruelty, but he ignored it. The original clearing the miko had gouged was now three times as large at the Six Tail's controlled might. Only his buttressed tree had remained standing: the rest of its brethren had collapsed, the bodies strewn in rows behind him for at least another fifty yards. The earth had been churned again – the largest boulders now flayed to pebbles, rifts in bedrock had collapsed as others were born, and most of the first fallen trees were now decimated splinters.

Rationality whispered in Kakashi's mind, but suspicion thinned his lips. He peered out from his shield of bedrock to those at the center of the clearing. He didn't expect to find the remains of the girl: that concentrated beam of chakra hadn't left even a trace of the other's prone forms. But he didn't expect to find the girl still living either.

But there she was. Floating there, arms still rigid, power still flaring. The blast hadn't touched her. The Okami staggering before her had taken it all.

The behemoth wolf fell to its stomach. It should have been dead, been _gone _but somehow – as if by some greater power – it remained. It remained and tried to rise once more. It managed to barely lift itself by its hind legs, its vast chest buckling as its great head fell low, its hackles quivering in the weakest of snarls.

A strange flush spread throughout its heat-shorn underfur, the color darkening until its whole front glistened and dripped with scarlet. With every rattle of its lungs, little droplets of crimson drizzled from its chest, hitting the ground with the soft patter of rain. Soon, coral rivulets spiraled forth from its paws, tracing messy outlines as they puddled around its broken figure.

The starved tiger cocked its head at the Okami, its tail twitching as death preened over its meal. But it didn't pounce on the titan. Not yet. Not when those eyes – eyes that had been dull – now raged with the brilliance Kakashi had seen in the mist. Those beacons glared at the Six Tails who hissed and stepped back, its maw widening to reveal hazy, black fangs. The bijū lowered its head, swaying as it shifted its gaze between miko and wolf. Then stopped on miko.

A streak of light burned Kakashi's eyes, his pupils shrinking as his muscles snapped taut. His gaze jerked back to the girl whose fist was entirely ensconced in white. Pure loathing fermented in her black eyes as they fixed upon the bijū who roused to the challenge, its tails arcing once more above its raised snout.

The hair rose along the Okami's withers as it cinched its claws into the dirt, the muscles along its back legs straining as it rose further onto its feet. Its chest lifted up off the soil, but it could do no more: its front legs could barely move. A deep-throated snarl scraped along its throat, setting the fur there quivering and blood tumbling forth.

At that sight, the Six Tails tilted its head, something reminiscent of thought in its empty, gleaming sockets. Its tails relaxed and began to twist hesitantly around each other as its maw lowered then snapped shut.

The miko agreed to no such pact. The blanched power in her palm swelled, brilliant streaks spiraling outwards as the unharnessed deformity failed to condense and now threatened to burst open at any moment in any direction.

The titan wolf's ears flicked as it yanked itself around. Buckling upon broken bones and severed tendons, a growl still crinkled its snout beneath blazing eyes as it stared straight at the girl. It dragged itself forward leaving a trail of ruby in its wake and rose once more, lifting just high enough to block her view of the Six Tails.

The miko's neck cracked to the right as she sharpened her obsidian eyes into the colossal wolf. It was as if rage itself coalesced there in those pits, its darkness pulling in the very light of the sky above. The energy in her hand frothed like wind-thrashed waves, and she uncurled her knuckles, each twitch shredding reality further and further as the white mass began to haphazardly expand. For a moment, her fingers froze as if stopped by some unseen force, but with a sharp crack the fingers splayed open, the knuckles fully inverted. The blinding energy swelled, released of all restraints.

Out of nowhere, a three-pronged kunai hurtled past the Okami's snout and harmlessly below the miko's feet. Just as it pierced the girl's shadow, Minato burst into existence. The jōnin swiped the kunai from the air, landed, twisted on a heel, and launched the weapon just behind the girl's back. In that same movement, he crouched and crunched his fingers together, shouting, "Katon: Endan [Fire Release: Flame Bullet]!"

Flames exploded from his mouth and shot towards the girl, scalding the air just in front of her nose. Caught by surprise, the miko jolted away, a guttural cry banging from her mouth. She twisted around, her limbs flaying as the half-formed chakra ball burst forth from her hand. Too hastily redirected, the shot went wide of both Okami and Minato – the latter of who was already gone. He had teleported to the kunai that had passed its zenith and was now falling in front of the girl's slack face.

Minato corkscrewed and kicked the girl in her chest, pelting her to the earth. She would've hit the ground hard – hard enough to break her spine – but the shinobi had calculated even that. Right on cue, the black wolf darted up a ridge and sprung into the air, snagging the girl in its mouth before falling to the earth and toppling forward, the girl nestled safely as it bent its head into its chest.

Kakashi flew forward, adrenaline flooding his veins. His heart bashed against his chest as desperate to break free as if a fire had been ignited beneath the muscle. Breath expanded his lungs, filling them so that his steps felt light – a mortal no longer chained to the earth. His dark eyes flashed, and time seemed to slow.

Because of that heightened sense, he saw the Six Tails seize its chance, spin, and pelt into the woods. He snapped his gaze to the chakra monster's back, just catching the human shadows that stripped themselves from nearby trees and tore after the bijū, kunai glinting in their fists.

He threw out his hand and looked back to the ninken who were already crouched, their snouts crinkled with the scents of their targets. He dropped his palm, snapping, "Ike [Go]!" The hounds hurtled along the cragged earth, disappearing into the underbrush in pursuit of the Mist. Kakashi watched them go, an ache building in his jaw, but he ripped his gaze from them as he heard an earsplitting yelp.

He turned to the black wolf who was stumbling back from the once-more floating girl, its panicked steps cut short as it slammed into the rocky wall behind it. A torrent of crimson was spilling from its mouth as it hacked and coughed, spraying its life onto the ground. Its legs quivered as its strength poured into warm puddles between its claws. It only had a few minutes: by that amount of blood, its jugular must have been cut from the inside.

A soft keening came from Kakashi's left. He'd have ignored the pitiful cry, but he took notice of it only because he picked out his Obito's and Rin's voices alongside it. The boy's voice was calling the kunoichi's name, but Rin's soothing murmurs were for another – murmurs whose lilting edge she only used when her patient couldn't be saved.

Kakashi didn't bother to turn his head: he knew the fuzzy blur at the edge of his sight belonged to the smaller, cream wolf. Behind a shield of stone, her paws were twitching, her snout twisting towards its black partner – the last labor of her failing muscles. He defined Rin's shadow hovering above her, the green glow of medical chakra sheathing her hands as she still tried to save the creature.

But the brunt of Kakashi's focus was still directed towards the miko. Because of that. he caught the twitching of the black wolf's ears, the turning of its head as it looked towards its mate, and the stumbling of its paws as it began to stagger towards her. Yet the shinobi knew there was no way the wolf would make it back in time: it would die before it even made it halfway, the other wolf watching before it succumbed to the same fate.

Kakashi acknowledged this all within a moment and discarded it just as quickly. He kept his cool focus because that's what a proper shinobi did. His eyes narrowed onto the miko, taking in the full extent of her scalded limbs in the areas the wolf's saliva had left clean and glistening. She looked as if something beneath her flesh was roasting her alive, causing her skin to foam and sputter. Her matte eyes, frothing with rage, were still trained to where the Six Tails had disappeared, but this time no feral shriek spewed from her lips. Instead, her fingers – knuckles still inverted despite the absence of the white chakra – began to shake.

The tremor built and built until it broke the locked joints, and the fingers snapped inwards to form a pale fist. The fist continued to tremble, then quake until the movement could no longer be contained. The trembling burst up her arm, along her shoulders, then into her neck. The convulsions possessed her whole then, and her neck began to jerk left and right – the vicious shaking looking like some sort of crazed denial. The spasms spread like hungry worms throughout her face: her brows jerked, her lips fluttered, her teeth gnashed, and her nostrils flared. The seizure overtook her – its mastery most blatant in her eyelids that twitched over those black chasms.

Black chasms which began to lighten.

Kakashi drew in a stinging breath as, now just twenty yards away, his eyes sharpened on the faint outlines of a pupil, the vague brown of iris. As the chestnut surfaced, sounds began to tumble past her chattering teeth – a repeating click of "K-K-K-".

Minato wasted no time. He leapt into the arena, his hands a blur as he summoned, "Katon: Hibashiri [Fire Release: Running Fire]!" The inferno ignited at his touch and splintered to surround all sides of the girl, its thick and starved flames clawing towards the heavens. Between the ever-shifting, slivered gaps the cage afforded its prisoner, the miko could be seen jerking back and forth, her movements either frenzied retreats or barely controlled lurches in her ongoing fit.

Minato turned towards his student, his signal evident even without him commanding, "Now!"

Kakashi clenched the prayer beads, their hard shells ramming into his left palm as the tantō began to shimmer in his right – its signature ethereal hue flickering to life as his chakra boiled within it. He rolled the stiffness from his shoulders as determination clamped his jaw shut, his eyes tracing the path he needed to access the cage from above. The ground began to fissure once more at the energy pulsing from the miko's ravings, but the churning of the earth gave him exactly what he needed. He raced along the bedrock's edge as it tipped upward like a sinking ship. In seconds, the rock plunged into the earth, swallowed whole, but he managed to leap off in time, the beads glinting in the light throne off by his sabre.

The flames blocking him collapsed just before he breached their walls – Minato's unrivaled chakra control maintaining the rest of the burning prison. A smile bit back Kakashi's lips as he saw that the he had planned it perfectly: not only did he have the advantage of height over the girl's suspended form, but her back was also too him In one second, he would yank the necklace around her throat and topple her to the floor in one blow. He stretched out his left arm, the beads springing in a savage eagerness that matched his own, and he slammed into her just as a surprised grunt popped in his throat.

He had been fast, but the girl had been faster: the Kami had known he was coming. The resultant crushing of his forearm with one hand and his throat with the other left him gaping at the girl whose eyelids had scrunched shut, but whose pits he knew were staring directly at him.

"K-K-Kill."

The word dripped from her lips – a toxin that only slid off Kakashi's skin. Even at his tender age, he'd heard that threat countless times: it didn't impress him – especially since no one yet had been able to back it up. Instead, the incredulous '_She should've been distracted' _clicked within his mind as the girl crunched his throat and wrist. He ground his molars and tried to tear from her grip, but the miko's fingers only clenched harder, her nails boring for blood. He impulsively gulped for air – the muscles in his neck rippling beneath her blunt claws, his lungs clenching on quickly staling air.

_The fire should've panicked her, _he grasped._ She _had_ been panicked. The fire-_His tongue curled back in another futile gasp as he hung there, the girl's touch a brand against his skin. The water collected at the edge of his eyes, his toes curled, his heart hammered, his lungs pulsed – but those were the last instincts his body followed.

Kakashi wrung his jaw shut, ingrained discipline demanding nothing less. The ruthless training of a shinobi had dulled this experience, dimmed the panic any living creature should feel: in truth, he had drowned in air more times than he cared to count. It only frustrated him that it took him this long to regain control over himself – his surprise at his failure the source of his momentary crammed that self-criticism away for later: instead, like any shinobi worth his hitai, Kakashi launched into a new strategy. The miko hadn't killed him yet – a fact probably related to that horrible "K-K-K-" again tripping from her chattering teeth – but he needed to act now.

He wrenched his neck, straining his chin leftward to force the girl's pressure onto a tendon rather than his windpipe. Her chokehold only tightened, but he managed to gouge out some reprieve. As he scrabbled for breath, he took advantage of his close proximity. His eyes ground into her, taking note of every wound, every spasm. In a second, he reaffirmed everything he had assessed before: her seething skin, her broken bones, and her twitching, shut eyelids and the fear etched into the lines of her face.

That last recognition soothed his ego somewhat – that affirmation that kept his record unblemished. It confirmed his earlier assumption – that she _had _been scared: he knew he'd seen it in the way she jerked back from the searing bars of her cage, had observed its shadow even in the matte of her eyes. He'd thought it was the inferno making her panic, but he understood his mistake now: though the blaze may have been a factor, the true provocation was now dimly glowing only centimeters from her fingers.

Kakashi realized it like a stab to his gut – the miscalculation an idiocy worthy of Obito. He shoved the guilt aside, knowing there was no time to wallow, and pinned his gaze to the girl. Her neck snapped sideways, her eyes rippled beneath those thin layers of skin – the girl suffering a nightmare from which she couldn't wake. Her fingers jerked along his neck and wrist – spasms that chaotically tightened and loosened. Between them he raked in snippets of air, but her grip was never weak enough for him to rip away – not even when the prayer beads lunged towards its true owner and the girl's knuckles rent back.

"Kakashi-kun!" he heard Minato shout just as the flames warped tighter around them – the blaze sawing against the girl's back to force an opening. But his sensei's actions only confirmed the shinobi's suspicions: the girl ignored the flames that raked her skin. Instead her grip tightened, her ferocity now buckling his battle-hardened bones as she strove to hold back the necklace.

The blaze imploded – Minato's finesse sending a particularly searing flame lashing the air before the miko's eyes while Kakashi remained untouched. The girl jerked, her jaw snapping shut – the movement so vehement it would've shattered her teeth if her tongue hadn't caught the blow. Blood flowed past her lips as her fingers squeezed, her inhuman strength now crushing his windpipe completely. Her sheer force drove dull fingernails into his neck, puncturing fabric then skin. Her eyelids twitched, splitting open to reveal a mottled black.

Then he felt it.

The hair at the nape of Kakashi's neck stiffened only to be smashed against his skin as a sudden pressure pounded against his spine. It felt as if the girl's fingers were burrowing there, their nails curling around his vertebrae and gouging into the bone until the point of shattering. But he knew the miko's hand was too small to reach fully around his throat.

His reasoning flicked through his memories, yanking out the images of the way reality had distorted along the miko's fingertips. Of how the bijū's chakra had also made it seem that gravity itself was condensing above its fangs, building up a tension that strained the very earth. Even of how the black wolf jerked away, its blood sputtering from its throat. As the stress ground deeper into his skin, he knew that the girl was once again channeling her chakra. This time, she was building it directly within his neck.

"K-Kill-" The words somehow crawled through her clenched teeth and past her quivering lips. The pressure turned spasmodic – some sort of violent froth sharply pulling back only to pound again and again at his marrow. But her focus wasn't even on him: no, her entire being revolved around the necklace chained to his wrist.

_Che, _Kakashi snipped, his lips tightening along his face as he threw the burden off his shoulders._ No choice now._

Minato had insisted that this only be a last resort, and here he was: kill or be killed – the simplest of all decisions to make. And the miko had made it painfully easy too: she may be trapping one fist, may be crushing his throat, but she hadn't even bothered to look at the tantō whose embers flickered then ignited.

Kakashi poured his chakra into the blade that condensed and compounded the energy. The metal awakened, its seething edge still just an ember compared to the light he remembered – a light so brilliant it would have reflected even in the matte of the girl's eyes. Now, it was only a whisper of that legendary glory – but a whisper that grew louder and louder with every passing year. Even if he hadn't yet achieved the mastery of his father, the weapon still flared as he jerked the fang to hover above her heart.

The weapon's spark nipped at the miko, but it wasn't enough to draw the attention of the callous creature. Instead, her neck jerked – a spasm of muscle – as her brow folded, creasing low over black eyes whose pits began to soften, to distort. Her form steadied, her grip – only that one crunching his throat – loosened infinitesimally. A soft breath dropped from her lips, the word clattering out once more, "K-Kill-"

But the tantō had already begun to drop – a comet streaking to the earth.

The dull pupils flickered to life only once – their muddy outlines visible only as she whispered, "M-me."

His muscles wrenched as the blade tasted her skin – not a faltering, just a small twitch. His nerves were still ignited, still rallying the tendons to war. The blade shrugged past frail flesh and dipped into scarlet, diving for its hot, pulsing source.

And she would've died – _should_'ve died – if it hadn't been for the blow that whipped his spine and punched the stagnant air from his lungs. The strike knocked Kakashi clear from the girl's clutches only to slam him to the earth. Every nerve shrieked their existence as he was ground into the spiky bedrock, his ribs caving as a weight drove his bones into the earth. A searing pain ignited along his left shoulder – the ligament heavily damaged if not torn. His joints creaked as he gulped air to refill the cavity in his chest, his breath restraining crushed intestines that scrambled upward for room.

Kakashi shook his head, his blinking slow and dazed then fast and alert as he felt his stomach grow wet. Then drenched. He crunched his chin to his chest to witness the scarlet inching up his torso like a horde of red slugs. _Blood, _he recognized, but he didn't feel the pain that would've corresponded with the amount. When he lifted his gaze, he realized why.

A toe of a gigantic paw filled his vision – a skyline of singed and shorn fur spreading before him like a crimson dusk. Droplets of blood kissed the ends of each hair – miniature suns whose deaths loomed over them as they did him. A charcoal nail was what pressed him down, its weight alone enough to pin him there as the shivering of muscles kept the digit from crushing him. His gaze ran up the rattling limb, past the hulking shoulders, until they strained to meet the searing, topaz eyes towering above him.

The Okami stared back, the hatred in its eyes bordering on betrayal. Then its look shifted, melted, as it turned from him, turned to-

A stringy yelp had Kakashi snapping his chin to the left, his eyes falling upon the equally pinned miko who lay just feet from him. She was convulsing, the wolf's weight doing nothing to halt the renewed spasms that jerked the girl amongst the rocks. The stones gouged eagerly – vengefully – into her skin. Her eyes, again hidden beneath frail lids, appeared to be writhing – their rhythm completely discordant to the wrenching of her muscles. Crimson pooled in the quaking hollows at either side of her neck – the blood not the Okami's but her own. Even if Kakashi's attack had been shallow – the blade not even having pierced her ribs – the scarlet poured out of her as if in desperate flight.

A burbling, guttural whine wracked the air, its bass knocking Kakashi's joints loose as the pebbles beside his ear scrambled away. He jerked his chin back, his mask snagging against loose gravel only to freeze. A blood-smeared fang larger than his whole body greeted him with a ruddy glint. His mind traced every option: the Chakra Saber was trapped, its unnoticed edge already pricking the titan's calloused paw; he knew a handful of useful jutsu, but his hands were equally pinned, equally useless. There was nothing he could do to stop the behemoth from pressing down, nothing save for the knowledge that the Okami couldn't do that - not without risking the girl.

Kakashi's nose wrinkled as the fang brushed his forehead – the bone wet and cold as the Okami rattled out a sticky, hot breath. He blinked away the humidity only to glare at those golden pupils as the wolf pulled back, its head tilted. His scowl remained unrequited: the titan only had eyes for the miko as another whine tickled its throat, keening desperation breakings its baritone.

The miko gasped, and at the edge of his vision, Kakashi could see that she had also stilled. But his focus wasn't on her. It wasn't even on the Okami anymore. There, just when the wolf's ears twitched, he swore he saw something. Saw _it. _The wobbling, half-formed dot of white chakra hovering just behind its withers. With every rotation, the sphere threw off an uneven discharge of energy that sent his nerves slinking back in fear. Even in its deformity, somehow its mass proved solid enough to grant it a life away from its creator – as if the girl was trying to imitate the Six Tails. The misshapen void warped the world around it like an eye of a hurricane, its energy snapping and crackling at the reality that challenged its existence.

The nail shifted above him – lifting just enough for the shinobi to realize that not all the tension that pounded his skin came from the paw: chakra was leaking from the girl like some sort of acid. He glanced towards her, noting that she had begun breathing once more – clipped, shallow breaths that didn't seem to make it past her tongue but human gasps nonetheless. She was regaining something – sanity, if he was lucky – but he knew the whole situation was a tinderbox, and the girl the fuse.

_There has to be a way to get the beads on her_, Kakashi thought. _A way that doesn't trigger her or the Okami_.

His brow furrowed only for movement to catch his eye and he wrung his neck further, ignoring the cracked root burrowing into his left temple. He only needed a glimpse of the smeared purple to know who it was: Rin, clothes shredded, hands bloody, stood ten yards away – her gaze hard despite telltale sheen over her cheeks. He could see them, could read the thoughts fluttering behind her eyes as she judged the situation, considered the appropriate response only for her gaze to fall on him. Her decision etched the edges of her mouth into a grim line as her palms flipped upward into the sign of the Tiger – the gateway to flame.

Kakashi's warning didn't make it to his lips – it was lodged somewhere between a crushed chest and a buckled throat. The kunoichi's hands sprinted through the symbols of the basic fire technique but just as her fingers landed upon the final sign, just as she opened her mouth to ignite flames, Minato appeared and gripped her wrist, breaking her concentration and the jutsu with ease. But the taut knot in Kakashi's stomach didn't even have a chance to loosen.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu [Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu]!" the summons teetered out on a quavering, exhausted voice – the resultant flames so weak they were barely a flash.

Kakashi couldn't see the figure from whom the flames dribbled out: his voice put him opposite of Minato, Rin and him, somewhere out of sight behind the Okami's bulk. But he could picture his teammate, could see him succumbing to exhaustion, his lips dragged wide in that sloppy, self-conceited, unearned grin. Somehow he had crawled, stumbled, tripped through the terrain – his presumed uselessness the perfect camouflage that had all combatants forget his existence. Yet here he was and here he had called out that jutsu. Why? To be the hero. The person who saved not only his genius teammate, but the Yellow Flash himself. The person who would save Rin.

That idiot.

Kakashi whipped his neck around not even bothering to hope against what he knew to be the truth: the miko's control had shattered. Rin had made it clear in her report: the miko reacted – _over_reacted – specifically to the Uchiha's jutsu. And now, as the girl's skull slammed back into the dirt, the misshapen orb of chakra plummeted in sync. The ball of compacted gravity detonated into the wolf with a sickening crack of ribs, of _spine. _The wolf crumpled, the blood gushing from its mouth as its elbows gouged into dirt. Its forepaws lifted, obeying the last deranged command of disintegrating nerves and affording both miko and shinobi their only chance of escape.

Kakashi rolled free, the tantō in his left hand, those beads in his right. The titan's limb came crashing down again, splaying a wave of dirt that pounded against the shinobi as he caught his balance with a foot. He sprung upward, shoving in breath after breath to fill his collapsed chest as he locked his gaze onto the girl and glimpsed her chest bowing outward, her head falling back. It looked as if someone was lifting her into the air by her clavicles, her legs swaying below like upended stalks of dying wheat, blood dripping from their tips to drop the widening distance and stain the earth. He scanned for any weak points only to settle upon that ankle whose bloated skin bulged on either side of the crumbling leather brace. The burned material was crumbling, exposing the throbbing flesh beneath, exposing skin that was-

_Burned? _his thoughts whiplashed between Obito's bragging and the instances of Rin's medical ninjutsu – on the beads, on the girl herself. He didn't have time to fit the pieces together: the miko was weakest after an attack. So when that thought pierced him, its clarity was a starter's whistle. He flew towards the girl, sprinting on uneven, decompressing muscles; however, as usual, Minato was already ahead of him.

Kakashi yanked to a halt as the jonin slipped out a white streak – the girl's cane – and drove it into the ground just below the miko, using his momentum to swing around and hit the girl in the chest, smashing her straight back down. He fell with her, angling himself so that he could pin her to the floor, but the girl swung an arm protectively over face – a strange human response that was met with an unkempt, desperate and weak pulse of chakra. The burst hit Minato obliquely, shredding half his uniform to rags as the skin below bubbled a thin red. He slammed to the floor feet away but rolled with the blow and yanked himself onto hands and knees. He turned to find the miko, feet dangling an inch from the floor, tracing his progress while a white energy started to trace twitching fingers.

"Rin-chan!" Minato shouted and the kunoichi responded with her own burst of flame, drawing the miko's fickle attention so that her midnight eyes met the kunoichi's almond ones. The miko's flesh began churning unnaturally, chakra racing just below the surface to gather at her fingertips and sputter forth into the air.

Minato whipped towards Kakashi and shouted, "Below!"

But Kakashi was already forming the jutsu, his sensei's actions made the new plan only too obvious. He used to be good with this technique: he'd used it a lot when he was little. Wanting to even out the field, he had naturally picked it up from his father who always employed it in their impromptu hide-and-seek games. That was a long time ago though, and it was only lately that he'd begun practicing it again, twisting its playful memory to more practical uses. Though he felt confident with the signs, he still hadn't been able to master the finer points yet – most notably the ultimate entrapment. Because of that, he hadn't employed it in battle before, but now there was no choice: it was the only way he could get close to her.

The prayer beads rattling against his forearm as he commanded the still-bristling nerves of his fingers to form the final symbol. "Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu [Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu]!" he spat the words out but he was already underground. The cool soil crushed him on every side, and he calmly suppressed the instinctual panic that came with being buried alive. He had to be quick: the lack of air was a major drawback to this jutsu along with the muting of every other sense – most notably, blindness. But Minato had seen to that.

Kakashi's moved through what felt like barbed honey only for his fist to slam into something hard – something smooth yet wooden – and he knew he'd hit the cane that marked where the girl was. He jerked closed eyes to where he remembered the girl's braced ankle to be, shook the necklace loose on his wrist, and ignited electricity in his palm. With that, he punched upward.

His fist latched around the telltale singed leather, the electricity pounding through his fingertips sheering the last of it off. He felt the beads leap from his hand, momentum shoving them upward and around the girl's ankle as his fingers bit into the distended flesh.

Unable to yank her down, Kakashi ripped his torso out of the earth to ensure his success. He swiped the dirt from his eyes just in time to see the beads zip tight against her skin, their pressure gouging them further into her wasted joint than even his white-knuckled fingers. The necklace turned a searing white – as blinding as the electricity still pulsing from his grip, still bursting through her nerves. And just as she came into this clearing – silent and still – the miko plummeted to the earth as if gravity suddenly remembered her existence. The girl slammed into Kakashi, knocking the air out of him as she spilled away – a jumble of disjointed limbs and wasted flesh.

Coughing, Kakashi yanked himself fully from the ground and crouched, waiting for the miko to spin around and attack once more. But she didn't. She just lay there. Kakashi fell forward and caught himself with a quivering hand. Dirt clung to his hair, clung to his sweat, and his grimace stung his split lip. He shifted his grip on the tantō that dark impulse whispering once more, its logic a bit more convincing than his sensei would have liked.

"Good work," Minato spoke behind him.

Kakashi turned only to flinch still as the movement sent deep, stinging stabs along his shoulder. Grimacing, he clutched the muscle as he watched his sensei stride past, his steps firm and even despite the blood staining his ragged uniform.

Rin materialized then at Kakashi's side and began tugging him to sit, murmuring something about how Obito was unconscious but stable. He settled back as she yanked down the battered fabric, revealing her teammate's skin already bruising black and purple. Kakashi barely noticed the green glow as she began, too intent on maintaining his scowl at the girl whose chest shakily rose and fell.

Minato knelt on a knee and lifted the girl, his fingers propping her up in the few patches of skin that seemed capable of being touched. Her cheek fell against her forearm, the new angle revealing the blood trickling from her eyes like demonic tears. The effect was only worsened when a gore-coated lock of hair fell and swiped the stream to form a crimson smear that climbed from her lips to her cheek in a debauched smile. Her eyelids began to flutter.

Kakashi tensed, ignoring Rin's admonition, as he watched the miko's eyelashes peel open and produce a sliver of untainted brown – a brown so dark they still nearly looked black. Gritting his teeth, he flicked away some jabbing pebbles and settled back into the kunoichi's care, still not taking his eyes off the girl as Minato murmured something to her.

It took the girl a few moments of bleary-eyed blinking, of chest-rattling gasping before her lips moved. Her misshapen word slipped out in a too-weak blubbering. But Kakashi knew the consonants she was making – he had seen that "K-K-K-" enough for a lifetime. But she wasn't saying "Kill" anymore. No, the last note was different but he hadn't been able to hear it.

The faintest whimper had blocked the last of it out.

Minato looked over his shoulder then back to the girl. Smoothly, carefully, he lifted her and drifted the few feet to where the Okami lay still, its eyes dying embers beneath lowered lashes. Its chest was sinking lower and lower, the breath leaking from it in uneven gasps as a trickle of red bubbled and trickled down from its snout.

Minato lowered the girl to the dirt just before the titan's cheek – the fur there somehow dimmed, the whiskers there lilted, the blood pooled in stagnant splotches. The wolf sought the girl with a gaze dimming beneath encroaching clouds. Kakashi watched as the miko swallowed, her throat swelling, her lips quivering. Her hand – now just a shaking fragile thing – slid through the dirt, reaching, _straining_ to touch the Okami. The wolf made a soundless whine – just a strange clenching of throat – and the girl froze, her fingers curling back.

Kakashi turned away. A flicker of the past – a juxtaposition of memory on sight – had his chest tightening. For some reason, this scene made him recall it. That Night was swimming before him, circling in front of his eyes: he could almost see himself standing where that miko now lay collapsed, see even his-

Rin's gasp jerked Kakashi back to his senses. He looked up as the wind began to stir. Then moan. It coursed through the trees that began to sway, the bark emitting its own resonating howl that shook in the hollow of his bones. As if beckoned by its call, a mist – that same strange chakra-infused vapor from earlier – began leaking from the deeper woods. It slipped into the clearing, a thin layer that stretched across the ground and cloaked the death and destruction that had been wrought. Its tendrils reached towards the Okami, their spindly hands winding their way through the rocks.

Already Kakashi felt another light headache tickling his temple. He crunched his brow as the fog flowed past him, tickling his skin with a cold, wet tongue. He looked to Minato for the orders to retreat, but his sensei ignored the encroaching gloom, his blue eyes watching the girl who lay quivering beside the Okami's body – her rattling and heaving growing weaker and weaker as exhaustion stole consciousness from her.

But she fought it. She fought it as the mist pooled around her and the wolf, embracing them, nuzzling them. It blanketed them in a sheen of ghostly white as if wrapping them in a soft cloak, trying to usher both to rest.

He felt Rin jerk away, and he glanced at her annoyed. He saw then that a single, thin coil of the strange smoke had trickled up his body to nestle against his shoulder, weightless and unbidden. Frowning at it, he swiped at it as his headache doubled in strength. The mist stuck their stubbornly, its dampness beginning to seep into his skin. He swatted at it again for it to obey and disperse, revealing pale, healthy skin. He rolled his shoulder, his brow furrowing only to find the joint perfectly healthy. He glanced at her Rin who shook her head, equally puzzled.

He looked back towards Minato and the girl, watching as similar threads of mist wrapped around their torsos and nestled against their wounds. Oozing blood was staunched, bruises were erased. Minato looked down and wiped his blood from his arm, revealing fresh skin unmarred save for the etchings of old scars. The girl's livid skin dulled to a smooth olive, the beads wound tight against her imperviously bloated ankle dulling to a low shimmer.

The mist surged over the Okami, coating its body in an opaque veil of a white that was a dull shadow to the original brilliance of the fur Kakashi had seen. Only the titan's eyes could be traced now beneath that cloud – eyes that grew fainter and fainter with every heartbeat. If he didn't know better, he could have even sworn that the mist was spilling from the creature – a transformation of its material fur into the ethereal. But he knew better, and his reflections were silenced by the girl. She had begun to panic, her head whipping back and forth as words – silent but powerful – caught in her throat that began clenching and unclenching.

A fresh gust buffeted the back of Kakashi's head – a strange blast that forced him to dip his chin towards the Okami. He didn't fight the forced bowing of his head, but he glanced past his eyelashes to witness the Okami exhaling its last, the breath curling around the girl and tossing her hair like a mother's hand. Then its eyes extinguished and the Okami receded beneath the mist.

He looked towards the girl, wondering why she wasn't sobbing, bawling, smashing the ground with her fists, wondering why she had stilled just like he had. It took him only a moment for him to realize it though: the girl had already fallen unconscious.

Kakashi shifted in his seat as Minato bent and gathered her up in his arms, the jonin's expression indecipherable as he stared down at the girl. The young shinobi let out a breath and glanced around, noting how the fog grew thicker every passing minute – its source having turned that patch of woods into mirror of where he'd once been trapped. They needed to leave soon – a thought that had Kakashi already rising before Minato called, "Kakashi-kun."

He straightened. "Hai."

His sensei fixed him with cool eyes that preemptively stifled the muttered grouching that would've come. "Grab Obito-kun. You'll carry him until he wakes."

Kakashi's shoulders slumped – his sensei's authority unable to prevent his silent, sullen glower. "Hai."

Minato dipped his chin and shifted the girl so that she rested against his back, her legs supported by his arms. He looked between his two students, a tired smile lifting his lips. "Good job you two. Now let's go home."

**00000000000000000000000000000000000000**

_Wow. Guys. YES! FINALLY! WE DID IT! YEEEE-*throws phone*-EEEEEEEE-*dances around room*-EEEEEE-*flips table over*-EEESSSS!_

_Writing action scenes like this takes a lot out of me, and this one took way longer than I thought it would originally, but, with all the deaths, you probably can understand why. I know it was a long, chapters-long fight scene but hopefully it was an entertaining read and you guys were able to get through the action-whiplashes and understand it all. It took a long time polishing up this chapter (literally the words "Okami smash by girl. Bad hurt. Something something something. Sad." were written). Hopefully it also feels somewhat well-laid out to you guys so it can something that – if you re-read – you can be like "Oh! Foreshadowing!" or "Hey! That turns out randomly to be important!" (a la Rin healing her ankle way back in the day of Chapter 20)._

_After hearing some feedback from some lovely people and reviewers (shout out to Giu), I'm currently consolidating multiple chapters of this fight to make fewer, longer sections that won't break up the action so much. I was already wanting to do this since that was my original plan, but to keep up with a somewhat regular-ish posting schedule, I just decided to upload whenever I hit an acceptable break in action. So if you see some weird chapters being posted (ie Chapter 37, etc), then that will be this consolidation effort._

_Either way, as you can probably tell, this is the climax to this first arc of the story. The next chapter will be the conclusion of this "intro arc", but the story will continue. Enjoy it? Let down? Surprised at the turn this story took? Happy there are way less OCs now to worry about distracting from canon? Would always appreciate any opinion especially any ConCrit you may have!_

_PS No dog attack this week! Hurray!_


	43. Chapter 43

'_Mira_.'

The lights. They drifted before me gasping, quivering. Once I had thought them immortal, those raging suns, but now they were twin rays of softest dusk. They shuddered, folding their wings to dive off the edge of eternity. They would never kiss the world again, never warm my soul.

They were dying because I had betrayed them.

The Pitch was already spiraling around me, already threatening to pull me back into its suffocating embrace. Its black tendrils cinched around my ankles and slithered along my flesh to lick at the curve of my spine. It tickled me, tasted me, fed on me.

So I fought. Not for me, but for them. Those dying suns. They were calling to me. _She _was calling to me. I clawed myself after her, snapping the tentacles of Pitch dragging at me, breaking free from Izanagi's grip. "Ka-san," I whimpered, trying to drag the lights back into her eyes, trying to awaken their dawn once more. "P-please don't leave!"

But her lashes drifted lower and lower, eclipsing those suns of her eyes. The strings that made her – those threads of musubi – they were what bound her to existence, and one by one they dimmed, flickered, and fell away. And one by one, I watched as the spirit of a kami shattered.

I tried to move, but the Pitch had surged around me, chaining my arms and legs. Its ink coiled around my stomach, nestled along my neck. I could feel it twitching against me, pulsing as it snickered at me. At Ka-san.

I shrieked and raged, but I could only watch as she slipped from me. Only wail as Ka-san faded before me, each strand slipping away, each sun dimming to embers. Yet over it all – over the pain, hurt and fury – I could hear her. '_You are my daughter, Mira,' _her words reached me, caressed me, died with me.

The strands of musubi kept collapsing, fracturing into countless pieces. Those flecks of ethereal gold hovered and drifted, falling around me like snow. The Pitch hissed at the light and drew back, letting me breath, letting me weep.

'_You are a wolf.'_

The threads kept melting away – all but one. That final strand caught the hollow flames in Ka-san's eyes, and its gold darkened to red. I watched as that last, frail ribbon fluttered in a breeze I couldn't feel. I watched as it began to fray, and then I just _couldn't_.

I bowed my head, too weak to watch it snap and disappear. Too weak to say goodbye. Too weak to say she was wrong.

'_You are not Him.'_

I didn't raise my head. I didn't need to see. I already knew I was alone with the darkness. I already knew that when I looked up, the nightmare would begin again, and my mother's death would play out before me.

Again and again. The last memory I would ever have of Ka-san kept repeating and repeating, my recollections proving enough for the worst dreams I'd ever known. I made no attempt to fight them, to escape them. And with every replaying, the Pitch watched as well. It trembled around me. Then quaked.

That was what woke me in the end: Izanagi's laughter.

Blurred consciousness eventually found me, but I didn't open my eyes. No. I just lay there, cold thoughts tumbling behind eyelashes that were heavy and damp. It was consuming me. This _feeling_ in my chest. It nestled there. Right _there. _Right beneath my ribs. This strange sense of emptiness, hollowness. This void that echoed my own heartbeat. The musubi – the chakra – whatever its name was: I couldn't feel it anymore.

And I didn't care.

My tongue felt heavy, the pooling saliva creating an acrid swamp. Water nibbled lazy trails along my cheeks, but I made no move to hide them, to wipe them away. I deserved to be branded by them, by those tears. Those markers of shame were the final proof that Ka-san was wrong.

A wolf doesn't cry? Then I was no wolf. Not now. Not ever.

My chest weighed heavy on my lungs, keeping my breath shallow, limp. With every selfish twitch of survival, another wail rattled beneath my skin The pain echoed through me, sliding over strained muscles, battered bones, and mutilated nerves. But I welcomed it. Welcomed it all. The wind grating my raw skin. The salty blood corroding my tongue. The stench of sweat and gore raking my nostrils. It meant I had regained myself, taken back this broken shell of a body.

_For now, _the words clattered down the hollow curve of my skull, tumbling over one another to the starved Pitch seething far below. I could feel Him down there, past the depths of my soul, could feel Him coiling back to rest and wait.

I flinched – a wrenching of sweat-slicked brows and cracking whine that had someone murmuring, "Easy. Easy." Calloused fingers nestled into my shoulders, steadying a trembling I hadn't even known was there. "You're safe now," the man's voice continued hovering in and out of earshot. "No one's going to hurt you."

His hands dented my skin as he braced and lifted me. My spine groaned as it bent, though its mewling was hidden beneath my own. I peeled apart soggy lashes to meet his blue gaze. My sight worked, but my consciousness blurred its edges, made the world spin with every movement. I tried to steady limbs of stone and watched and waited. I expected a flash of fear, of anger in those eyes. Instead, I found-

_Understanding_? I stiffened but didn't break out of his grip. _Or just a mask? _

The man blinked – something flickering in those depths. He pulled away but not before shoving something against my back. And that's where I remained – existing in that limbo between seated and reclined, guarded and exposed.

It was only a few seconds before the new angle had hoarded the tensions throughout my body. The pressures roiled and clashed with one another, making my stomach gut bubble and broil at the strain. They popped against the back of my ribs, rising and seething. My chest caved as an acidic bubble erupted against the back of my throat – the muscles clenching just in time to keep the mucus from spilling out. I dropped my chin against my neck, hoping the added curl in my throat would somehow suffocate the nausea.

"It's okay," his reassurance came again, garbled and distant. "Do whatever you need to."

Between rattling breaths, I cracked my eyes open to gauge him, noting he hadn't backed away. He hovered over my left shoulder, his head tilted just enough to make his blonde hair sway in the frail breeze. Flickers of the dream – shreds of those ribbons of musubi – fluttered before me, mapped onto a blonde that was a shadow of that celestial shade.

_Minato-san,_ the thoughts teetered forward. _Shinobi. Helped._

Silent visions sparked of his wounded arm wrapping around me, carrying me to Ka-san. My gaze fell to his side, and I could only blink. No longer was his skin shredded and bloodied. The scarlet had since been washed from him, the skin since healed. His torn outfit was exchanged for fresh fabric, and the worst of the muck had been cleaned from him. The guise of the battle-hardened warrior had fallen – or just concealed once more.

It was hard to tell in this dulled state. It was hard to care.

I sieved through the rest of my memories, finding them in scarlet-coated fragments. No embers ignited, no clear scene hissed to life. All I had were dead ashes – the remnants of that chaos. Flesh and fur. Pain and terror. Screams and shouts. They all lay shattered in a wreckage I would never clean, never attempt to organize or piece together.

I remembered enough.

"Better?" Minato-san murmured, the concern softening his voice, his eyes.

I dipped my chin only for a fresh wave of sick to shoot up my tonsils. I took slower, curdling breaths, blinking against the sting as spittle dripped over my lips. I swiped the saliva from my face, pain slithering over my nerves as a girl's voice cooed, "You have a bit of a fever."

I looked to her, the name 'Rin-chan' floating up to me. _Or should it be 'san' now? _that shallow thought breached as I met a gaze marbled with sympathy and concern. She hovered over my right side, her brows creased and low. "How are you feeling?" her question slipped over me: though her lips moved slowly, the words crashed into me like a fist.

I didn't answer. I stared down at my chest, watching it rise and fall in a shaky rhythm.

"Can't she hear us?" a boy's disembodied voice floated over me, the words gargling against my ears. "You think she went deaf or something?"

Rin-chan murmured something, but the words were too far away for me to hear. All that slipped through my daze was a soft "catatonic", but I could only register the strange rattling noise in my chest – heartbeat or shuddering lungs I wasn't sure.

Minato-san continued, "Do you remember anything?"

A shiver slid along my shoulders, rousing a pain to grate against raw nerves. A strange sort of noise crashed against my ears, and in the corners of my mind, I registered it had come from me. Strange, since it sounded so distant.

Minato-san let out a breath. "I'm sorry, Mira-chan." The dirt hissed as he settled at my side. "I should've done more."

I gritted my teeth but said nothing: I stared straight ahead.

"We're just on the outskirts of the mountain," he continued minutes or hours or days later. "About a twenty-minute walk from Ojiro. We would've stayed, but the mist was too strong. You know, it kind of reminded me of Mt. Myōboku."

The tenor in his voice fell flat on my ears.

"We won't take you any further," his voice trickled on – lyrics to a tune I couldn't remember. "If you want to go back, you can, but my offer still stands." He stopped, his pause creating a strange sort of rift between us, something that demanded my attention. It was a command I was too weak to ignore.

My eyes stung as the air sizzled against them, but I refused to close them. I lifted my gaze to his and watched as something flickered there, not knowing, not caring what it could be. His mouth moved, but I heard nothing: I didn't need to.

I already knew my answer: it had fallen like a stone into the pit of my stomach. It was the only solid thing in me anymore – the only thing that seemed certain. It was my voice that answered, but I hadn't felt my lips move. Still, the word hung out there, bridging that fault between us – a soft, feeble "Okay."

And with that one word, I was sent careening into unconsciousness once more. I slipped and slid back into oblivion, descending once more into the tortuous dreams. I didn't resist it, didn't scramble for consciousness. There was no point. Who would I have been fighting for? Who would I have-

'_Sister?'_

I lifted my head, my hands shaking as I tried to sit up. I ignored the palms that supported my shoulders and stared straight ahead, reality gouging stakes to pin my mind. Spines swelled in my throat as I stared at Teru-kun, and for the only time in my life, I was glad I didn't have to meet his eyes.

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**A/N: Hey guys! A short chapter this week as I've been a bit busy. Edits are still ongoing, but hoped you liked the update! It's a bit flowery, but I just wanted to flex those muscles for a bit especially after writing action for so long. Either way, these few chapters will be the darkest and most angsty I plan to write for this story. With all that's happened, I'm sure you'd understand why since it'd be weird if she was chipper at this point.**

**PS Sorry for the update mix-up last time! I was uploading at like 4am so mistakes were bound to happen. Since I usually keep plot points at the bottom of my chapters, maybe even some of you got a glimpse as to what was to come before I caught that mistake ;) As always, let me know what you think in the comments! Thoughts, feels, and ConCrit encouraged!**


	44. Chapter 44

**A/N: Newest chapter update a "vignette" that I promised - Check chapter 6 if you want to read it! It introduces canon characters and is from Kakashi's perspective.**

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My vision turned to a watery haze as my brother stood there, his limbs heavy, his soul defeated. Though he hadn't been a part of the battle, he seemed to already know its outcome. I trembled, and at first I thought he was quivering too, but when I swiped my tears away, I realized Kotone and Miyako were shuddering against his legs. The pups' tails curled against their stomachs as they shrunk in on themselves – confusion and uncertainty etched in their shivering forms as they hid their faces in Teru-kun's fur.

My brother's snout wrinkled as he sniffed and stepped forward – his paws hesitant and shaking as they brushed over roots and rocks. The pups whimpered and entwined themselves around his paws, hobbling him further as he took another step.

'_Back!'_ Miyako whined. _'Back now!'_

'_Ka-san and Oto-san waiting!_' Kotone whimpered. _'They there!'_

Teru-kun lifted another paw, hesitated, and set it back down, unsure of where he was going. I opened my mouth, but noise lodged in my swollen throat. All that came out was a strange choking noise as if I was drowning. But it was enough. The pups poked their noses from between his legs, and their wide eyes fell on me.

'_Mira-chan!'_ Their ears perked and they both broke in sprints, charging me with their tails and ears tucked. I felt my support abandon me as I caught both of their blows to either side of my ribs. Their whines raked my ears as they nestled into me, their kisses rough and sharp against my raw skin. They pressed in on me, and I could barely breathe but I yanked them in even closer.

I buried myself into them, and finally, I started bawling. The wounds festering within me were punctured and their pus drained from me as I held nothing back. I abandoned any shred of dignity I may have had left and felt the sobs wrack my chest as my little sisters joined in with their own keening and wailing.

I tried to explain to them as best as I could why Kizuato-san and Hana-san wouldn't be returning. Why no one would be returning. They didn't understand – not really – but while their youth saved them from the worst of the reality, it exposed their rawest emotions. They dug into me, burrowing their heads into the tattered folds of my hakama.

We mourned together though for how long I don't know. At some point I remember looking to Teru-kun only to see him sitting there, his head lifted to the heavens he couldn't see, his mouth opened in a goodbye no one but those now in the Eternal Hunt could hear. I remember that moment so well because he's never howled since: with no one left to answer, why would he bother?

"She's not talking?"

His voice was clear in my daze – an alarm that woke me from my misery. I flinched and drew the pups in closer as jumbled memories flashed, my mind stitching images of Grey Hair reading on my branch, to a knife held above my heart, then to the sweet pain of release when he saved me.

I cast my gaze around, finding him standing a few feet behind Rin-chan. My face – unable to form the expression that would portray all my feelings – chose to go blank: he, meanwhile, glared at me. He hadn't washed off the battle yet, and though his arms were crossed over his chest, I could see the exhaustion weighing on his shoulders. Rin-chan turned to speak with him, but her voice still was a strange warble to me.

"The Mist are taken care of," Grey Hair answered. "The bijū is resealed, and Habu is unconscious. Even when she wakes up, she won't be going anywhere. It's too bad we can't take her too."

Minato-san answered – his words unclear but his tone steady, sure.

"Well, we were coming back when we came across those three stumbling around," Grey Hair continued. "I was going to leave them since they were so slow, but they kept trying to follow." He shrugged. "I figured it might help get her to talk one way or another, but it seems like it was pointless if she said she's already going to come back with us." He began massaging a shoulder as he moved the joint this way and that. "So what should we do, sensei?"

More gargling of voices as movement caught my eye, and I realized that now only a single ninken – that small pug – sat on a stone by Grey Hair's heels. The dog returned my gaze and even seemed to be sympathetic – but that may have been just the wrinkles framing his eyes. He perked an ear at me.

I turned away, not wanting to think about what that meant, and faced the pups who were now nuzzling against my sides, their whimpers draining. I stroked their ears and lifted my eyes to see Teru-kun lying in front of me, his face feet from mine. He leaned forward, his snout dipping low as he growled, _'They told us what happened.'_ The way he phrased it – that ice in his tone. His lip curled back over his fangs. _'The dog translated that young human's words for us.'_

I blinked, my stomach churning as guilt piled gravity onto my shoulders. I hunched low, swallowing sand as I looked away from the scarred remains of his eyes only to meet the unsure gazes of the pups. The girls looked up at me, their ears twitching, their eyes questioning. I pulled my hands back from them, my fingers shaking as I realized how revolting I was: the person who killed the pack was holding them, trying to comfort herself as much as them.

I lifted my chin, my lips quivering as I faced Teru-kun's wrath: I deserved whatever was to come.

'_One day we'll kill her, Mira-chan,'_ he growled. _'She's taken everything from us. When we're strong enough, we'll hunt Death down.'_

I blinked. If my brother could've have seen the expression on my face, he would've realized the truth – or at least the fact that some lie had been told. I clutched my quaking hands to my chest and heard a whine: I looked down to see Miyako perking a tired ear up at me as Kotone buried her exhaustion against my leg.

I slipped through my thoughts, slapping together some semblance of what must've happened, what _he _must have said. I looked to Grey Hair, but this time he ignored me as he began removing his gear still in conversation. Instead, I locked eyes with the pug who gave a solitary nod.

I blanched, the ache lining my skull redoubling. My breaths clattered along my tongue as I looked to Teru-kun and trembled. I opened my lips, but the truth lodged into my gut like a rock. I tried to shove it up and out of my mouth, but it just kept sinking lower and lower. I pulled at it, tore at it, screamed at it, but in the end, I couldn't budge it.

I couldn't look at my family now and admit what I'd done. I couldn't lose them too. Not so completely like that at least. For my answer was already bubbling in my throat, trying to expel that lie's poison. My sincerity was evident in how poorly considered my ideas were as I said, _'Yes, but you need to stay. I need to go, but it's_ _safer for you _here_.'_

Teru-kun's lips wrinkled, and the pups began to whine. I turned away, my innards like oily water at their protests, only to glimpse Grey Hair leaning forward as the pug whispered something into his ear. _He's translating, _I realized, my eyes widening, but I had no time – no ability really – to process what it meant in that moment.

Instead, I could only flinch as Teru-kun growled at me, his tone stripped to steel. I turned to see the closest vision there would ever be of him as an alpha. _'I don't trust dogs,' _he said, _'but I have no choice now, I suppose. That little beast said they'd not harm us and that you'd be safest with the shinobi. I told him that __it's when you left the pack and joined the humans that this all started happening. I won't let you be alone again__. We are pack, and I will not abandon you. We are strongest together.'_

Panic tightened the muscles in my jaw and my thigh, priming me for fight or flight. Unable to even move, I chose the former and dredged up all the excuses I could imagine. I faced him and gargled out, _'But what about food? Yori-senpai said the animals are smaller out there. There won't be enough!'_

'_Like we can hunt here?'_ he said. _'We'll starve if we stay, Mira-chan. I can't hunt anymore, and the pups have never learned. We found Ka-san's kill, and we ate enough so we can last a few weeks. When the time comes, we'll manage.'_ He flicked his tail and grumbled, '_It'll be better if the animals out there are smaller with how weak we are now. We'll be become root-diggers if we have to.'_

'_I don't even know what'll happen,'_ I countered. _'When I'm at their Village, I don't know what they're going to do with me. I can't be worrying about you and the pups too. You're all that I have left and-'_

My words caught as his hot tongue swept cool over my tear-streaked face. My face puckered as I swiped his thick saliva off my lips and growled at the brotherly show of affection. I patted down the matted chords of my hair as he laughed, _'You can be a real idiot sometimes, little flea. Those are the very same reasons I am not leaving you.'_

Heat shut my throat so all I could do was flick the tip of a whisker. He pulled pack, crinkling his nose and muttering, '_You taste terrible. At least, they won't want to eat you.'_

I ignored him and looked down at the pups. They were still sniveling at my sides, still so young though their shoulders nearly reached the height of my own as I lay next to them. Their eyes were already closing, hiccups still rocking their chests despite their whimpers having ended. I let out a breath – one that I let tickle both their ears as they sought comfort in sleep.

'_And the pups?'_ I murmured.

His chest fell and, first nudging around with a paw, slid his bulk to the ground just beside us. _'They're too young to make any decision, let alone be on their own,' _he spoke as he quieted a mewling Miyako with a nudge of his nose. He raised his head to me then, and I could imagine the deep gold of his eyes as he stared at me. _'We are no longer children, Mira. We cannot sulk like we did before. We don't have that luxury now. Not when they're depending on us.' _

I leaned forward, closed my eyes, and laid my forehead against his. His warm, frazzled fur pushed against my face, brushing away the tears and grime. I rested all of my weight against him, feeling as if all my bones were melting away. To this day I don't know how I did it, but somehow I kept the trembling from my voice as I whispered, _'I know.'_

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A/N: Hey ya, folks! Glad to see that you're still reading (and if any readers out there just joined us on this chapter, I bet you're confused). Either way, hope you enjoyed this chapter and, as always, please leave me whatever thoughts/feels/ConCrit you may have! As summer is winding down for me unfortunately which means my writing will probably slow down a bit too. However, I have planned to finish the last of this arc and basically have the next chapter essentially ready to go!

As some of you may remember, I am planning to add in some 'vignettes' with canon characters earlier on in the story. I know, I know. Many of you probably don't want to go back, but if you get chapter updates, be sure to check _which chapter_.

Otherwise, a book rec if you'd like: Memoirs of a Geisha (if you're old enough, that is). A bit dated, but I finally got around to reading it and enjoyed it! I thought the author did a great job at crafting the villain(s) in the story. Either way, have a great day/night and, as always, happy FanFictioning!


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